Empress Josephine: An Historical Sketch of the Days of Napoleon Part 22

In the Permont family Napoleon was received with the same friends.h.i.+p and attention as in former days; Madame de Permont retained ever for the son of the friend of her youth, Let.i.tia, a kindly smile, a genial sympathy, an intelligent appreciation of his plans and wishes; her husband manifested toward him all the interest of a parental regard; her son Albert was full of tenderness and admiration for him; and her younger daughter Laura jested and conversed with him as with a beloved brother.

In this house every thing seemed pleasant and friendly to Bonaparte; thither he came every day, and mixed with the social circles, which gathered in the evening in the drawing-rooms of the beautiful, witty Madame de Permont; and where men even of diverging political sentiments, aristocrats and ci-devants of the first water, were to be found. But Madame de Permont had forbidden all political discussion in her saloon; and General Bonaparte, now compelled to inactivity, dared no more show his anger against the Committee of Safety, or against the Convention, than the Count de Montmorency or any of the proud ladies of the former quarter of St. Germain.

Not only the inactivity to which he was condemned, not only the destruction of all his ambitious hopes, burdened the mind of Bonaparte, but also the material pressure under which he now and then found himself, and which seemed to him a shame and a humiliation. With gloomy grudge he gazed at those young elegants whom he met on the Boulevards in splendid toilet, on superb horses--at these incroyables who, in the first rays of the sun of peace, from the soil of the republic, yet moist with blood, had sprung up as so many mushrooms of divers colors and varied hues.

"And such men enjoy their happiness!" exclaimed Bonaparte, contemptuously, as once in the Champs Elysees he sat before a coffee-house, near one of those incroyables, and with violent emotion starting up, he pushed his seat back and nearly broke the feet of his exquisitely dressed neighbor.

To be forgotten, to be set in the background, to be limited in means, was always to him a source of anger, which manifested itself now in impa.s.sioned vehemence, now in vague, gloomy dreaminess, from which he would rise up again with some violent sarcasm or some epigrammatic remark.

But whilst he thus suffered, was in want, and had so much to endure, his mind and heart were always busy. His mind was framing new plans to bring to an end these days of inactivity, to open a new path of fame and glory; his heart dreamed of a sweet bliss, of another new love!

The object of this love was the sister of his brother's wife, the young Desiree Clary. Joseph Bonaparte, who was now in Ma.r.s.eilles as war-commissioner, had married there one of the daughters of the rich merchant Clary; and her younger sister Desiree was the one to whom Napoleon had devoted his heart. The whole Bonaparte family was now in Ma.r.s.eilles, and had decided to make their permanent residence in France, as their return to Corsica was still impossible; for General Paoli, no longer able to hold the island, had called the English to his help, and the a.s.sembled Consulta, over which Paoli presided, had invited the King of England to become sovereign of the island. The French party, at whose head had been the Bonaparte family, was overcome, and could no longer lift up head or voice.

Bonaparte came often to Ma.r.s.eilles to visit his family, which consisted of his mother Let.i.tia, her three daughters, her two younger sons, and her brother, the Abbe Fesch. There, he had seen every day, in the house of his brother, Desiree Clary, and the beautiful, charming maid had not failed to leave in the heart of the young general a deep impression.

Desiree seemed to return this inclination, and a union of the two young lovers might soon have taken place, if fate, in the shape of accident, had not prevented it.

Joseph was sent by the Committee of Safety to Genoa, with instructions; his young wife and her sister Desiree accompanied him. Perhaps the new, variable impressions of the journey, perhaps her separation from Bonaparte, and her a.s.sociation with other officers less gloomy than the saturnine Napoleon, all this seemed to cool the love of Desiree Clary; she no more answered Napoleon's letters, and, in writing to his brother Joseph, he made bitter complaints: "It seems that to reach Genoa the River Lethe must first be crossed, and therefore Desiree writes no more." [Footnote: See "Memoires du Roi Joseph," vol. i.]

The only confidant to whom Bonaparte imparted these heart-complaints, was Junot. He had for him no secrecy of his innermost and deepest inclinations; to him he complained with grave and impa.s.sioned words of Desiree's changeableness; and Junot, whose wors.h.i.+pful love for his friend could not understand that any maiden, were she the most beautiful and glorious on earth, could ever slight the inclination of General Bonaparte, Junot shared his wrath against Desiree, who had begun the rupture between them by leaving unanswered two of Napoleon's letters.

After having been angry and having complained in concert with Bonaparte, Junot's turn to be confidential had come. Bewildered, and blus.h.i.+ng like a young maid, he avowed to his dear general that he also loved, and that he could hope for happiness and joy only if Napoleon's younger sister, the beautiful little Pauline, would be his wife.

Bonaparte listened to him with a frowning countenance, and when Junot ended by asking his mediation with Pauline's mother, Napoleon asked in a grave tone, "But, what have you to live upon? Can you support Pauline?

Can you, with her, establish a household which will be safe against want?"

Junot, radiant with joy, told him how, antic.i.p.ating this question of Napoleon, he had written to his father, and had asked for information in regard to his means; and that his father had just now answered his questions, and had replied that for the present he could not give him anything, but that after his death the inheritance of his son would amount to twenty thousand francs.

"I shall be one day rich," exclaimed Junot, gayly, as he handed to Napoleon the letter of his father, "for with my pay I will have an income of twelve hundred livres. My general, I beseech you, write to the Citoyenne Bonaparte; tell her that you have read the letter of my father, and say a good word in my favor."

Bonaparte did not at once reply. He attentively read the letter of Junot, senior, then returned it to his friend, and with head sunk down upon his breast he stared gloomily, with contracted eyebrows.

"You answer not, general," exclaimed Junot, in extreme anguish. "You do not wish to be my mediator?"

Bonaparte raised his head; his cheeks were paler than before, and a gloomy expression was in his eyes.

"I cannot write to my mother to make her this proposition," said he, in a rough, severe tone. "That is impossible, my friend. You say that one day you will have an income of twelve hundred livres. That is, indeed, very fair, but you have them not now. Besides, your father's health is remarkably good, and he will make you wait a long time. For the present you have nothing; for your lieutenant's epaulets can be reckoned as nothing. As regards Pauline, she has not even that much. Let us then sum up: you have nothing; she has nothing! What is the total amount?

Nothing. You cannot, therefore, be married now: let us wait. We shall, perhaps, friend, outlive these evil days. Yes, we shall outlive them, even if I have to become an exile, to seek for them in another portion of the world! Let us, then, wait!" [Footnote: Bonaparte's words.--See Abrantes, "Memoires," vol. i., p. 284.]

And a wondrous, mysterious brilliancy and flash filled the eyes of General Bonaparte, as with a commanding voice he repeated, "Let us wait!"

Was this one of those few and pregnant moments in which the mind with prophetic power gazes into the future? Had a corner of the veil which hid the future been lifted up before the glowing eagle-eye of Napoleon, and did he see the splendor and the glory of that future which were to be his? However great his imagination, however ambitious his dreams, however wide his hopes, yet they all were to be one day surpa.s.sed by the reality. For would he not have considered a madman him, who, at this hour, would have told him: "Smooth the furrows on your brow, Bonaparte; be not downcast about the present. You are now in want, you are thrust aside; forgetfulness and obscurity are now your lot; but be of good cheer, you will be emperor, and all Europe will lie trembling at your feet. You love the young Desiree Clary, and her indifference troubles you; but be of good cheer, you will one day marry the daughter of a Caesar, and the little Desiree, the daughter of a merchant from Ma.r.s.eilles, will one day be Sweden's queen! You refuse to Junot, your friend, the gratification of his wishes, because he possesses nothing but his officer's epaulets: but be of good cheer, for you will one day convert the little Lieutenant Junot into a duke, and give him a kingdom for a dowry! You feel downhearted and ashamed, because your sister Pauline is not rich, because she possesses nothing but her beauty and her name: but be of good cheer, she will one day be the wife of the wealthiest prince of Italy; all the treasures of art will be gathered in her palace, and yet she will be the most precious ornament of that palace!"

Surely the General Bonaparte would have laughed at the madman, who, in the year 1795, should have thus spoken to him--and yet a mere decade of years was to suffice for the realization of all these prophecies, and to turn the incredible into a reality.

CHAPTER XIX. THE THIRTEENTH VENDEMIAIRE.

The days of terror, and of blood, under which France has sighed so long, were not to end with the fall of Robespierre. Another enemy of the rest and peace of France had now made its entrance into Paris--hunger began to exercise its dreary rale of horror, and to fill the hearts of men with rage and despair.

Everywhere throughout France the crops had failed, and the republic had too much to do with the guillotine, with the political struggles in the interior, with the enemies on the frontier, she had been so busy with the heads of her children, that she could have no care for the welfare of their stomachs.

The corn-magazines were empty, and in the treasury of the republican government there was no money to buy grain in foreign markets. Very soon the want of bread, the cry for food, made itself felt everywhere; soon hunger goaded into new struggles of despair the poor Parisian people, already so weary with political storms, longing for rest, and exhausted by conflicts. Hunger drove them again into politics, hunger converted the women into demons, and their husbands into fanatical Jacobins. Every day, tumults and seditious gatherings took place in Paris; the murmuring and howling crowd threatened to rise up. Every day appeared at the bar of the Convention the sections of Paris, entreating with wild cries for a remedy for their distress. At every step in the streets one was met by intoxicated women, who tried to find oblivion of their hunger in wine, and to whom, notwithstanding their drunkenness, the consciousness of their calamity remained. These drunken women, with the gestures of madness, shouted: "Bread! give us bread! We had bread at least in the year '93! Bread! Down with the republic! Down with the Convention, which leaves us to starve!"

To these shouts responded other ma.s.ses of the people: "Down with the const.i.tutionalists! Long live the Mountain! Long live the Convention!"

Civil war, which in its exhaustion had remained subdued for a moment, threatened to break out with renewed rage, for the parties stood face to face in determined hostility, and "Down with the const.i.tutionalists!--down with the republicans!" was the watchword of these parties.

For a moment it seemed as if the Mountain, as if the revolution, would regain the ascendency, as if the terrorists would once more seize the rudder which had slipped from their blood-stained hands. But the Convention, which for a time had remained undecided, trembling and vacillating, rose at length from its lethargy to firm, energetic measures, and came to the determination to restore peace at any price.

The people, stirred up by the terrorists, the furious men of the Mountain, had to be reduced to silence, and the cry, "Long live the const.i.tution of '93!--down with the Convention!"--this cry, which every day rolled on through the streets of Paris like the vague thunderings of the war-drum,--had to be put down by armed force. Barrere, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud Varennes, the remnant of the sanguinary administration of Robespierre, the terrorists who excited the people against the Convention, who pressed on the Thermidorists, and wanted to occupy their place, these were the ones who with their adherents and friends threatened the Convention and imperilled its existence. The Convention rose up in its might and punished these leaders of sedition, so as through fear and horror to disperse the ma.s.ses of the people.

Barrere, Collot d'Herbois, and Billaud Varennes, were arrested and sent to Cayenne; six of their friends, six republicans and terrorists, were also seized, and as they were convicted of forging plots against the Convention and the actual administration, they were sentenced to death.

A seventh had also been at the head of this conspiracy; and this seventh one, who with the others had been sentenced to death, and whom the Committee of Safety had watched for everywhere, to bring down upon him the chastis.e.m.e.nt due, this seventh one was Salicetti--the same Salicetti who after the fall of Robespierre had arrested General Bonaparte as suspect. Bonaparte had never forgiven him, and though he often met him in the house of Madame de Permont, and appeared to be reconciled with him, yet he could not forget that he was the one who had stopped him in the midst of his course of fame, that it was he who had debarred him from his whole career.

"Salicetti has done me much harm," said Bonaparte to Madame de Permont, and a strange look from his eyes met her face--"Salicetti has destroyed my future in its dawn. He has blighted my plans of fame in their bud.

I repeat, he has done me much harm. He has been my evil spirit. I can never forget it," but added he, thoughtfully, "I will now try to forgive." [Footnote: Abrantes, vol. i, p. 300.]

And again a peculiar, searching look of his eyes met the face of Madame de Permont.

She, however, turned aside, she avoided his look, for she dared not tell him that Salicetti, for whom the Convention searched throughout Paris so as to bring upon him the execution of his death-warrant--that Salicetti, whom Bonaparte so fiercely hated, was hid a few steps from him in the little cabinet near the drawing-room.

Like Bonaparte, Salicetti was the countryman of Madame de Permont; in the days of his power, he had saved the husband and the son of Panonia from the persecution of the terrorists, and lie had now come to ask safety from those whom he had once saved.

Madame de Permont had not had the courage to refuse an asylum to Salicetti; she kept him secreted in her house for weeks; and during all these weeks, Bonaparte came daily to visit Madame de Permont and her children, and every day he turned the conversation upon Salicetti, and asked if they knew not yet where he was secreted. And every time, when Madame de Permont answered him in the negative, he gazed at her with a piercing look, and with his light, sarcastic smile.

Meanwhile Salicetti's danger for himself, and those who secreted him, increased every day, and Madame de Permont resolved to quit Paris.

The sickness of her husband, who was in Toulon, furnished her with the welcomed opportunity of a journey. She made known to the friends and acquaintances who visited her house, and especially to Bonaparte, that she had received a letter from the physician in Toulon, requesting her presence at her husband's bed of sickness. Bonaparte read the letter, and again the same strange look met the face of Madame de Permont.

"It is, indeed, important," said he, "that you should travel, and I advise you to do so as soon as possible. Fatal consequences might ensue to M. de Permont, were you to delay any longer in going to Toulon."

Madame de Permont made, therefore, all her arrangements for this journey. Salicetti, disguised as a servant, was to accompany her.

Bonaparte still came as usual every day, and took great interest in the preparations for her journey, and conversed with her in the most friendly and pleasant manner. On the day of departure, he saluted her most cordially, a.s.sured her of his true, unswerving attachment, and, with a final, significant look, expressed a wish that her journey might be accomplished without danger.

When Madame de Permont had overcome all difficulties, and she and her daughter had left Paris and pa.s.sed the barriere, as the carriage rolled on without interruption (Salicetti, disguised as a servant, sitting near the postilion on the driver's seat), the housemaid handed to her a letter which General Bonaparte had given her, with positive orders to hand it to her mistress only when they should be beyond the outer gates of Paris.

The letter ran thus: "I have never been deceived: I would seem to be in your estimation, if I did not tell you that, for the last twenty days, I knew that Salicetti was secreted in your house. Remember what I told you on the first day, Prairial, Madame de Permont--I had then the mental conviction of this secrecy. Now it is a matter of fact.--Salicetti, you see I could have returned to you the wrong which you perpetrated against me, and by so doing I should have revenged myself, whilst you wronged me without any offence on my part. Who plays at this moment the n.o.bler part, you or I? Yes, I could have revenged myself, and I have not done it. You will, perhaps, say that your benefactress acted as a protecting s.h.i.+eld. That is true, and it also is taken into consideration. Yet, even without this consideration, such as you were--alone, disarmed, sentenced--your head would even then have been sacred to me. Go, seek in peace a refuge where you can rise to n.o.bler sentiments for your country.

My mouth remains closed in reference to your name, and will no more utter it. Repent, and, above all things, do justice to my intentions. I deserve it, for they are n.o.ble and generous.

"Madame de Permont, my best wishes accompany you and your daughter. You are two frail beings, without protection. Providence and prayers will accompany you. Be prudent, and during your journey never stop in large towns. Farewell, and receive the a.s.surance of my friends.h.i.+p." [Footnote: Abrantes, "Memoires," vol. i., p. 351.]

The n.o.bility of mind which Bonaparte displayed toward his enemy was soon to receive its reward; for, whilst Salicetti, a fugitive, sick, and sentenced to death, was compelled to remain hidden, Bonaparte was emerging from the oblivion to which the ambitious zeal of Salicetti would have consigned him.

When Napoleon, dismissed from his position, arrived in Paris, and appealed to Aubry, the chief of the war department, to be re-established in his command, he was told: "Bonaparte is too young to command an army as general-in-chief;" and Bonaparte answered: "One soon becomes old on the battle-field, and I come from it." [Footnote: Norvins, "Histoire de Napoleon," vol. i., p. 60.]

But Aubry, in his functions of chief of the war department, was soon superseded by the representative Douclet de Ponte-Coulant, and this event gave to the position of the young general a different aspect.