The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827
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Various >> The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827
Sterner times were fast approaching, and the nation was now fully
divided by those factions which produced the revolution. The officers of
Bonaparte's regiment were also divided into royalists and patriots; and
it is easily to be imagined, that the young and friendless stranger and
adventurer should adopt that side to which he had already shown some
inclination, and which promised to open the most free career to those
who had only their merit to rely on. "Were I a general officer," he is
alleged to have said, "I would have adhered to the king; being a
subaltern, I join the patriots."
There was a story current, that in a debate with some brother officers
on the politics of the time, Bonaparte expressed himself so
outrageously, that they were provoked to throw him into the Rhone, where
he had nearly perished. But this is an inaccurate account of the
accident which actually befell him. He was seized with the cramp when
bathing in the river. His comrades saved him with difficulty, but his
danger was matter of pure chance.
Napoleon has himself recorded that he was a warm patriot during the
whole sitting of the National Assembly; but that on the appointment of
the Legislative Assembly, he became shaken in his opinions. If so, his
original sentiments regained force, for we shortly afterwards find him
entertaining such as went to the extreme heights of the revolution.
Early in the year 1792, Bonaparte became a captain in the artillery by
seniority; and in the same year, being at Paris, he witnessed the two
insurrections of the 20th of June and 10th of August. He was accustomed
to speak of the insurgents as the most despicable banditti, and to
express with what ease a determined officer could have checked these
apparently formidable, but dastardly and unwieldy masses. But with what
a different feeling of interest would Napoleon have looked on that
infuriated populace, those still resisting though overpowered Swiss, and
that burning palace, had any seer whispered to him, "Emperor that shall
be, all this blood and massacre is but to prepare your future empire!"
Little anticipating the potent effect which the passing events were to
bear on his own fortune, Bonaparte, anxious for the safety of his mother
and family, was now desirous to change France for Corsica, where the
same things were acting on a less distinguished stage.
BONAPARTE'S FIRST MILITARY EXPLOIT.
Napoleon's first military exploit was in the civil war of his native
island. In the year 1793, he was despatched from Bastia, in possession
of the French party, to surprise his native town Ajaccio, then occupied
by Paoli or his adherents. Bonaparte was acting provisionally, as
commanding a battalion of National Guards. He landed in the Gulf of
Ajaccio with about fifty men, to take possession of a tower called the
Torre di Capitello, on the opposite side of the gulf, and almost facing
the city. He succeeded in taking the place; but as there arose a gale of
wind which prevented his communicating with the frigate which had put
him ashore, he was besieged in his new conquest by the opposite faction,
and reduced to such distress, that he and his little garrison were
obliged to feed on horse-flesh. After five days he was relieved by the
frigate, and evacuated the tower, having first in vain attempted to blow
it up. The Torre di Capitello still shows marks of the damage it then
sustained, and its remains may be looked on as a curiosity, as the first
scene of _his_ combats, before whom
--"Temple and tower
Went to the ground.--"
A relation of Napoleon, Masserio by name, effectually defended Ajaccio
against the force employed in the expedition.
The strength of Paoli increasing, and the English preparing to assist
him, Corsica became no longer a safe or convenient residence for the
Bonaparte family. Indeed, both Napoleon and his brother Lucien, who had
distinguished themselves as partisans of the French, were subjected to a
decree of banishment from their native island; and Madame Bonaparte,
with her three daughters, and Jerome, who was as yet but a child, set
sail under their protection, and settled for a time, first at Nice, and
afterwards at Marseilles, where the family is supposed to have undergone
considerable distress, until the dawning prospects of Napoleon afforded
him the means of assisting them.
Napoleon never again revisited Corsica, nor does he appear to have
regarded it with any feelings of affection. One small fountain at
Ajaccio is pointed out as the only ornament which his bounty bestowed on
his birthplace. He might perhaps think it impolitic to do any thing
which might remind the country he ruled that he was not a child of her
soil, nay, was in fact very near having been born an alien, for Corsica
was not united to, or made an integral part of France, until June, 1769,
a few weeks only before Napoleon's birth. This stigma was repeatedly
cast upon him by his opponents, some of whom reproached the French with
having adopted a master, from a country from which the ancient Romans
were unwilling even to choose a slave; and Napoleon may have been so far
sensible to it, as to avoid showing any predilection to the place of his
birth, which might bring the circumstance strongly under the observation
of the great nation, with which he and his family seemed to be
indissolubly united. But, as a traveller already quoted, and who had the
best opportunities to become acquainted with the feelings of the proud
islanders, has expressed it,--"The Corsicans are still highly patriotic,
and possess strong local attachment--in their opinion, contempt for the
country of one's birth is never to be redeemed by any other qualities.
Napoleon, therefore, certainly was not popular in Corsica, nor is his
memory cherished there."[7]
[7] Benson's "Sketches of Corsica," p. 121.
The feelings of the parties were not unnatural on either side. Napoleon,
little interested in the land of his birth, and having such an immense
stake in that of his adoption, in which he had every thing to keep and
lose,[8] observed a policy towards Corsica which his position rendered
advisable; and who can blame the high-spirited islanders, who, seeing
one of their countrymen raised to such exalted eminence, and disposed to
forget his connexion with them, returned with slight and indifference
the disregard with which he treated them?
[8] Not literally, however: for it is worth mentioning, that
when he was in full-blown possession of his power, an
inheritance fell to the family, situated near Ajaccio, and was
divided amongst them. The first consul, or emperor, received an
olive-garden as his share.--_Sketches of Corsica_.
The siege of Toulon was the first incident of importance which enabled
Bonaparte to distinguish himself in the eyes of the French government
and of the world at large. Shortly afterwards he was appointed chief of
battalion in the army of Italy, and on the fall of Robespierre,
Bonaparte superseded in command. At the conflict between the troops of
the Convention under Napoleon, and those of the Sections of Paris under
Damican, the latter was defeated with much slaughter, and Bonaparte was
appointed general-in-chief in command of the army of the interior.
BONAPARTE'S FIRST MARRIAGE.
Meantime circumstances, which we will relate according to his own
statement, introduced Bonaparte to an acquaintance, which was destined
to have much influence on his future fate. A fine boy, of ten or twelve
years old, presented himself at the levee of the general of the
interior, with a request of a nature unusually interesting. He stated
his name to be Eugene Beauharnois, son of the ci-devant Vicomte de
Beauharnois, who, adhering to the revolutionary party, had been a
general in the republican service upon the Rhine, and falling under the
causeless suspicion of the committee of public safety, was delivered to
the revolutionary tribunal, and fell by its sentence just four days
before the overthrow of Robespierre. Eugene was come to request of
Bonaparte, as general of the interior, that his father's sword might be
restored to him. The prayer of the young supplicant was as interesting
as his manners were engaging, and Napoleon felt so much interest in him,
that he was induced to cultivate the acquaintance of Eugene's mother,
afterwards the empress Josephine.
The lady was a Creolian, the daughter of a planter in St. Domingo. Her
name at full length was Marie Joseph Rose Tascher de la Pagerie. She had
suffered her share of revolutionary miseries. After her husband, General
Beauharnois, had been deprived of his command, she was arrested as a
suspected person, and detained in prison till the general liberation,
which succeeded the revolution of the 9th Thermidor. While in
confinement, Madame Beauharnois had formed an intimacy with a companion
in distress, Madame Fontenai, now Madame Tallien, from which she derived
great advantages after her friend's marriage. With a remarkably graceful
person, amiable manners, and an inexhaustible fund of good-humour,
Madame Beauharnois was formed to be an ornament to society. Barras, the
Thermidorien hero, himself an ex-noble, was fond of society, desirous of
enjoying it on an agreeable scale, and of washing away the dregs which
Jacobinism had mingled with all the dearest interests of life. He loved
show, too, and pleasure, and might now indulge both without the risk of
falling under the suspicion of incivism, which, in the Reign of Terror,
would have been incurred by any attempt to intermingle elegance with the
enjoyments of social intercourse. At the apartments which he occupied,
as one of the Directory, in the Luxemburg Palace, he gave its free
course to his natural taste, and assembled an agreeable society of both
sexes. Madame Tallien and her friend formed the soul of these
assemblies, and it was supposed that Barras was not insensible to the
charms of Madame Beauharnois,--a rumour which was likely to arise,
whether with or without foundation.
When Madame Beauharnois and General Bonaparte became intimate, the
latter assures us, and we see no reason to doubt him, that although the
lady was two or three years older than himself,[9] yet being still in
the full bloom of beauty, and extremely agreeable in her manners, he was
induced, solely by her personal charms, to make her an offer of his
hand, heart, and fortunes,--little supposing, of course, to what a pitch
the latter were to arise.
[9] Bonaparte was then in his twenty-sixth year. Josephine gave
herself in the marriage contract for twenty-eight.
Although he himself is said to have been a fatalist, believing in
destiny and in the influence of his star, he knew nothing, probably, of
the prediction of a negro sorceress, who, while Marie Joseph was but a
child, prophesied she should rise to a dignity greater than that of a
queen, yet fall from it before her death.[10] This was one of those
vague auguries, delivered at random by fools or impostors, which the
caprice of fortune sometimes matches with a corresponding and conforming
event. But without trusting to the African sibyl's prediction, Bonaparte
may have formed his match under the auspices of ambition as well as
love. The marrying Madame Beauharnois was a mean of uniting his fortune
with those of Barras and Tallien, the first of whom governed France as
one of the Directors; and the last, from talents and political
connexions, had scarcely inferior influence. He had already deserved
well of them for his conduct on the Day of the Sections, but he required
their countenance to rise still higher; and without derogating from the
bride's merits, we may suppose her influence in their society
corresponded with the views of her lover. It is, however, certain, that
he always regarded her with peculiar affection; that he relied on her
fate, which he considered as linked with and strengthening his own; and
reposed, besides, considerable confidence in Josephine's tact and
address in political business. She had at all times the art of
mitigating his temper, and turning aside the hasty determinations of his
angry moments, not by directly opposing, but by gradually parrying and
disarming them. It must be added to her great praise, that she was
always a willing and often a successful advocate in the cause
of humanity.
[10] A lady of high rank, who happened to live for some time in
the same convent at Paris, where Josephine was also a pensioner
or boarder, heard her mention the prophecy, and told it herself
to the author, just about the time of the Italian expedition,
when Bonaparte was beginning to attract notice. Another clause
is usually added to the prediction--that the party whom it
concerned should die in an hospital, which was afterwards
explained as referring to Malmaison. This the author did not
hear from the same authority. The lady mentioned used to speak
in the highest terms of the simple manners and great kindness
of Madame Beauharnois.
They were married 9th of March, 1796; and the dowry of the bride was the
chief command of the Italian armies, a scene which opened a full career
to the ambition of the youthful general. Bonaparte remained with his
wife only three days after his marriage, hastened to see his family, who
were still at Marseilles, and, having enjoyed the pleasure of exhibiting
himself as a favourite of fortune in the city which he had lately left
in the capacity of an indigent adventurer, proceeded rapidly to commence
the career to which fate called him, by placing himself at the head of
the Italian army.
The renowned Italian campaigns occupy the remainder of the third, and
some part of the fourth volume, to which we now proceed. It will be
remembered that the war in Egypt being triumphantly concluded on the
part of Great Britain, the news of the contest reached France some time
before the English received it. Napoleon, on learning the tidings, is
reported to have said, "Well, there remains now no alternative but to
make the descent on Britain."
PROPOSED INVASION OF GREAT BRITAIN.
As the words of the first consul appeard to intimate, preparations were
resumed on the French coast for the invasion of Great Britain. Boulogne
and every harbour along the coast was crowded with flat-bottomed boats,
and the shores covered with camps of the men designed apparently to fill
them. We need not at present dwell on the preparations for attack, or
those which the English adopted in defence, as we shall have occasion to
notice both, when Bonaparte, for the last time, threatened England with
the same measure. It is enough to say, that, on the present occasion,
the menaces of France had their usual effect in awakening the spirit
of Britain.
The most extensive arrangements were made for the reception of the
invaders should they chance to land, and in the meanwhile, our natural
barrier was not neglected. The naval preparations were very great, and
what gave yet more confidence than the number of vessels and guns,
Nelson was put into command of the sea, from Orfordness to Beachy-head.
Under his management, it soon became the question, not whether the
French flotilla was to invade the British shores, but whether it was to
remain in safety in the French harbours. Boulogne was bombarded, and
some of the small craft and gun-boats destroyed--the English admiral
generously sparing the town; and not satisfied with this partial
success, Nelson prepared to attack them with the boats of the squadron.
The French resorted to the most unusual and formidable preparations for
defence. Their flotilla was moored close to the shore in the mouth of
Boulogne harbour, the vessels secured to each other by chains, and
filled with soldiers. The British attack in some degree failed, owing to
the several divisions of boats missing each other in the dark; some
French vessels were taken, but they could not be brought off; and the
French chose to consider this result as a victory, on their part, of
consequence enough to balance the loss at Aboukir;--though it amounted
at best to ascertaining, that although their vessels could not keep the
sea, they might, in some comparative degree of safety, lie under close
cover of their own batteries.
The preliminaries of peace, however, were signed, and the treaty was
confirmed at Amiens, on the 27th of March, 1802. Napoleon still
prosecuted his ambitious projects, extended his power in Italy, and
caused himself to be appointed consul for life, with the power of naming
his successor.
SCHEME OF INVASION RENEWED.
It must be in the memory of most who recollect the period, that the
kingdom of Great Britain was seldom less provided against invasion than
at the commencement of this second war; and that an embarkation from the
ports of Holland, if undertaken instantly after the war had broken out,
might have escaped our blockading squadrons, and have at least shown
what a French army could have done on British ground, at a moment when
the alarm was general, and the country in an unprepared state. But it
is probable that Bonaparte himself was as much unprovided as England
for the sudden breach of the treaty of Amiens--an event brought about
more by the influence of passion than of policy; so that its
consequences were as unexpected in his calculations as in those of Great
Britain. Besides, he had not diminished to himself the dangers of the
undertaking, by which he must have staked his military renown, his
power, which he held chiefly as the consequence of his reputation,
perhaps his life, upon a desperate game, which, though he had already
twice contemplated it, he had not yet found hardihood enough seriously
to enter upon.
He now, however, at length bent himself, with the whole strength of his
mind, and the whole force of his empire, to prepare for this final and
decisive undertaking. The gun-boats in the Bay of Gibraltar, where calms
are frequent, had sometimes in the course of the former war been able to
do considerable damage to the English vessels of war, when they could
not use their sails. Such small craft, therefore, were supposed the
proper force for covering the intended descent. They were built in
different harbours, and brought together by crawling along the French
shore, and keeping under the protection of the batteries, which were now
established on every cape, almost as if the sea-coast of the channel on
the French side had been the lines of a besieged city, no one point of
which could with prudence be left undefended by cannon. Boulogne was
pitched upon as the centre port, from which the expedition was to sail.
By incredible exertions, Bonaparte had rendered its harbour and roads
capable of containing two thousand vessels of various descriptions. The
smaller sea-ports of Vimereux, Ambleteuse, and Etaples, Dieppe, Havre,
St. Valeri, Caen, Gravelines, and Dunkirk, were likewise filled with
shipping. Flushing and Ostend were occupied by a separate flotilla.
Brest, Toulon, and Rochefort, were each the station of as strong a naval
squadron as France, had still the means to send to sea.
A land army was assembled of the most formidable description, whether we
regard the high military character of the troops, the extent and
perfection of their appointments, or their numerical strength. The
coast, from the mouth of the Seine to the Texel, was covered with
forces; and Soult, Ney, Davoust, and Victor, names that were then the
pride and the dread of war, were appointed to command the army of
England, (for that menacing title was once more, assumed,) and execute
those manoeuvres, planned and superintended by Bonaparte, the issue of
which was to be the blotting out of Britain from the rank of
independent nations.
Far from being alarmed at this formidable demonstration of force,
England prepared for her resistance with an energy becoming her ancient
rank in Europe, and far surpassing in its efforts any extent of military
preparation before heard of in her history. To nearly one hundred
thousand troops of the line, were added eighty thousand and upwards of
militia, which scarce yielded to the regulars in point of discipline.
The volunteer force, by which every citizen was permitted and invited to
add his efforts to the defence of the country, was far more numerous
than during the last war, was better officered also, and rendered every
way more effective. It was computed to amount to three hundred and fifty
thousand men, who, if we regard the shortness of the time and the nature
of the service, had attained considerable practice in the use and
management of their arms. Other classes of men were embodied, and
destined to act as pioneers, drivers of wagons, and in the like
services. On a sudden, the land seemed converted to an immense camp, the
whole nation into soldiers, and the good old king himself into a
general-in-chief. All peaceful considerations appeared for a time to be
thrown aside; and the voice, calling the nation to defend their dearest
rights, sounded not only in Parliament, and in meetings convoked to
second the measures of defence, but was heard in the places of public
amusement, and mingled even with the voice of devotion--not unbecoming
surely, since to defend our country is to defend our religion.
Beacons were erected in conspicuous points, corresponding with each
other, all around and all through the island; and morning and evening,
one might have said, every eye was turned towards them to watch for the
fatal and momentous signal. Partial alarms were given to different
places, from the mistakes to which such arrangements must necessarily be
liable; and the ready spirit which animated every species of troops
where such signals called to arms, was of the most satisfactory
description, and afforded the most perfect assurance, that the heart of
every man was in the cause of his country.
Amidst her preparations by land, England did not neglect or relax her
precautions on the element she calls her own. She covered the ocean with
five hundred and seventy ships of war of various descriptions.
Divisions of her fleet blocked up every French port in the channel; and
the army destined to invade our shores, might see the British flag
flying in every direction on the horizon, waiting for their issuing from
the harbour, as birds of prey may be seen floating in the air above the
animal which they design to pounce upon. Sometimes the British frigates
and sloops of war stood in, and cannonaded or threw shells into Havre,
Dieppe, Granville, and Boulogne itself. Sometimes the seamen and marines
landed, cut out vessels, destroyed signal posts, and dismantled
batteries. Such events were trifling, and it was to be regretted that
they cost the lives of gallant men; but although they produced no direct
results of consequence, yet they had their use in encouraging the
spirits of our sailors, and damping the confidence of the enemy, who
must at length have looked forward with more doubt than hope to the
invasion of the English coast, when the utmost vigilance could not
prevent their experiencing insults upon their own.
During this period of menaced attack and arranged defence, Bonaparte
visited Boulogne, and seemed active in preparing his soldiers for the
grand effort. He reviewed them in an unusual manner, teaching them to
execute several manoeuvres by night; and experiments were also made upon
the best mode of arranging the soldiers in the flat-bottomed boats, and
of embarking and disembarking them with celerity. Omens were resorted to
for keeping up the enthusiasm which the presence of the First Consul
naturally inspired. A Roman battle-axe was said to be found when they
removed the earth to pitch Bonaparte's tent or barrack; and medals of
William the Conqueror were produced, as having been dug up upon the same
honoured spot. These were pleasant bodings, yet perhaps did not
altogether, in the minds of the soldiers, counterbalance the sense of
insecurity impressed on them by the prospect of being packed together in
these miserable chaloupes, and exposed to the fire of an enemy so
superior at sea, that during the chief consul's review of the
fortifications, their frigates stood in shore with composure, and fired
at him and his suite as at a mark. The men who had braved the perils of
the Alps and of the Egyptian deserts, might yet be allowed to feel alarm
at a species of danger which seemed so inevitable, and which they had no
adequate means of repelling by force of arms.
A circumstance which seemed to render the expedition in a great measure
hopeless, was the ease with which the English could maintain a constant
watch upon their operations within the port of Boulogne. The least
appearance of stir or preparation, to embark troops, or get ready for
sea, was promptly sent by signal to the English coast, and the numerous
British cruisers were instantly on the alert to attend their motions.
Nelson had, in fact, during the last war, declared the sailing of a
hostile armament from Boulogne to be a most forlorn undertaking, on
account of cross tides and other disadvantages, together with the
certainty of the flotilla being lost if there were the least wind
west-north-west. "As for rowing," he adds, "that is impossible.--It is
perfectly right to be prepared for a mad government," continued this
incontestable judge of maritime possibilities; "but with the active
force which has been given me, I may pronounce it almost impracticable."