Louis de Bourrienne
Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
CHAPTER IV
1795-1797
On my return to Paris I meet Bonaparte—His interview with Josephine —Bonaparte's marriage, and departure from Paris ten days after— Portrait and character of Josephine—Bonaparte's dislike of national property—Letter to Josephine—Letter of General Colli, and Bonaparte's reply—Bonaparte refuses to serve with Kellerman— Marmont's letters—Bonaparte's order to me to join the army—My departure from Sens for Italy—Insurrection of the Venetian States.
After the 13th Vendemiaire I returned to Paris from Sens. During the short time I stopped there I saw Bonaparte less frequently than formerly. I had, however, no reason to attribute this to anything but the pressure of public business with which he was now occupied. When I did meet him it was most commonly at breakfast or dinner. One day he called my attention to a young lady who sat opposite to him, and asked what I thought of her. The way in which I answered his question appeared to give him much pleasure. He then talked a great deal to me about her, her family, and her amiable qualities; he told me that he should probably marry her, as he was convinced that the union would make him happy. I also gathered from his conversation that his marriage with the young widow would probably assist him in gaining the objects of his ambition. His constantly-increasing influence with her had already brought him into contact with the most influential persons of that epoch. He remained in Paris only ten days after his marriage, which took place on the 9th of March 1796. It was a union in which great harmony prevailed, notwithstanding occasional slight disagreements. Bonaparte never, to my knowledge, caused annoyance to his wife. Madame Bonaparte possessed personal graces and many good qualities.
—["Eugène was not more than fourteen years of age when he ventured to introduce himself to General Bonaparte, for the purpose of soliciting his father's sword, of which he understood the General had become possessed. The countenance, air, and frank manner of Eugène pleased Bonaparte, and he immediately granted him the boon he sought. As soon as the sword was placed in the boy's hands he burst into tears, and kissed it. This feeling of affection for his father's memory, and the natural manner in which it was evinced, increased the interest of Bonaparte in his young visitor. Madame de Beauharnais, on learning the kind reception which the General had given her son, thought it her duty to call and thank him. Bonaparte was much pleased with Josephine on this first interview, and he returned her visit. The acquaintance thus commenced speedily led to their marriage."—Constant]—
—[Bonaparte himself, at St. Helena, says that he first met Josephine at Barras' (see Iung's Bonaparte, tome iii. p. 116).]—
—["Neither of his wives had ever anything to complain of from Napoleon's personal manners" (Metternich, vol. 1 p. 279).]—
—[Madame de Rémusat, who, to paraphrase Thiers' saying on Bourrienne himself, is a trustworthy witness, for if she received benefits from Napoleon they did not weigh on her, says, "However, Napoleon had some affection for his first wife; and, in fact, if he has at any time been touched, no doubt it has been only for her and by her" (tome i. p. 113). "Bonaparte was young when he first knew Madame de Beauharnais. In the circle where he met her she had a great superiority by the name she bore and by the extreme elegance of her manners. . . . In marrying Madame de Beauharnais, Bonaparte believed he was allying himself to a very grand lady; thus this was one more conquest" (p. 114). But in speaking of Josephine's complaints to Napoleon of his love affairs, Madame de Rémusat says, "Her husband sometimes answered by violences, the excesses of which I do not dare to detail, until the moment when, his new fancy having suddenly passed, he felt his tenderness for his wife again renewed. Then he was touched by her sufferings, replaced his insults by caresses which were hardly more measured than his violences and, as she was gentle and untenacious, she fell back into her feeling of security" (p. 206).]—
—[Miot de Melito, who was a follower of Joseph Bonaparte, says, "No woman has united so much kindness to so much natural grace, or has done more good with more pleasure than she did. She honoured me with her friendship, and the remembrance of the benevolence she has shown me, to the last moment of her too short existence, will never be effaced from my heart" (tome i. pp.101-2).]—
—[Meneval, the successor of Bourrienne in his place of secretary to Napoleon, and who remained attached to the Emperor until the end, says of Josephine (tome i. p. 227), "Josephine was irresistibly attractive. Her beauty was not regular, but she had 'La grace, plus belle encore que la beaute', according to the good La Fontaine. She had the soft abandonment, the supple and elegant movements, and the graceful carelessness of the creoles.—(The reader must remember that the term 'Creole' does not imply any taint of black blood, but only that the person, of European family, has been born in the West Indies.)—Her temper was always the same. She was gentle and kind."]—
I am convinced that all who were acquainted with her must have felt bound to speak well of her; to few, indeed, did she ever give cause for complaint. In the time of her power she did not lose any of her friends, because she forgot none of them. Benevolence was natural to her, but she was not always prudent in its exercise. Hence her protection was often extended to persons who did not deserve it. Her taste for splendour and expense was excessive. This proneness to luxury became a habit which seemed constantly indulged without any motive. What scenes have I not witnessed when the moment for paying the tradesmen's bills arrived! She always kept back one-half of their claims, and the discovery of this exposed her to new reproaches. How many tears did she shed which might have been easily spared!
When fortune placed a crown on her head she told me that the event, extraordinary as it was, had been predicted: It is certain that she put faith in fortune-tellers. I often expressed to her my astonishment that she should cherish such a belief, and she readily laughed at her own credulity; but notwithstanding never abandoned it: The event had given importance to the prophecy; but the foresight of the prophetess, said to be an old regress, was not the less a matter of doubt.
Not long before the 13th of Vendemiaire, that day which opened for Bonaparte his immense career, he addressed a letter to me at Sens, in which, after some of his usually friendly expressions, he said, "Look out a small piece of land in your beautiful valley of the Yonne. I will purchase it as soon as I can scrape together the money. I wish to retire there; but recollect that I will have nothing to do with national property."
Bonaparte left Paris on the 21st of March 1796, while I was still with my guardians. He no sooner joined the French army than General Colli, then in command of the Piedmontese army, transmitted to him the following letter, which, with its answer, I think sufficiently interesting to deserve preservation:
GENERAL—I suppose that you are ignorant of the arrest of one of my officers, named Moulin, the bearer of a flag of truce, who has been detained for some days past at Murseco, contrary to the laws of war, and notwithstanding an immediate demand for his liberation being made by General Count Vital. His being a French emigrant cannot take from him the rights of a flag of truce, and I again claim him in that character. The courtesy and generosity which I have always experienced from the generals of your nation induces me to hope that I shall not make this application in vain; and it is with regret that I mention that your chief of brigade, Barthelemy, who ordered the unjust arrest of my flag of truce, having yesterday by the chance of war fallen into my hands, that officer will be dealt with according to the treatment which M. Moulin may receive.
I most sincerely wish that nothing may occur to change the noble and humane conduct which the two nations have hitherto been accustomed to observe towards each other. I have the honour, etc.,
(Signed) COLLI.
CEVA. 17th April 1796.
Bonaparte replied as follows:
GENERAL—An emigrant is a parricide whom no character can render sacred. The feelings of honour, and the respect due to the French people, were forgotten when M. Moulin was sent with a flag of truce. You know the laws of war, and I therefore do not give credit to the reprisals with which you threaten the chief of brigade, Barthelemy. If, contrary to the laws of war, you authorise such an act of barbarism, all the prisoners taken from you shall be immediately made responsible for it with the most deplorable vengeance, for I entertain for the officers of your nation that esteem which is due to brave soldiers.
The Executive Directory, to whom these letters were transmitted, approved of the arrest of M. Moulin; but ordered that he should be securely guarded, and not brought to trial, in consequence of the character with which he had been invested.
About the middle of the year 1796 the Directory proposed to appoint General Kellerman, who commanded the army of the Alps, second in command of the army of Italy.
On the 24th of May 1796 Bonaparte wrote to, Carnot respecting, this plan, which was far from being agreeable to him. He said, "Whether I shall be employed here or anywhere else is indifferent to me: to serve the country, and to merit from posterity a page in our history, is all my ambition. If you join Kellerman and me in command in Italy you will undo everything. General Kellerman has more experience than I, and knows how to make war better than I do; but both together, we shall make it badly. I will not willingly serve with a man who considers himself the first general in Europe."
Numbers of letters from Bonaparte to his wife have been published. I cannot deny their authenticity, nor is it my wish to do so. I will, however, subjoin one which appears to me to differ a little from the rest. It is less remarkable for exaggerated expressions of love, and a singularly ambitious and affected style, than most of the correspondence here alluded to. Bonaparte is announcing the victory of Arcola to Josephine.
VERONA, the 29th, noon
At length, my adored Josephine, I live again. Death is no longer before me, and glory and honour are still in my breast. The enemy is beaten at Arcola. To-morrow we will repair the blunder of Vaubois, who abandoned Rivoli. In eight days Mantua will be ours, and then thy husband will fold thee in his arms, and give thee a thousand proofs of his ardent affection. I shall proceed to Milan as soon as I can: I am a little fatigued. I have received letters from Eugène and Hortense. I am delighted with the children. I will send you their letters as soon as I am joined by my household, which is now somewhat dispersed.
We have made five thousand prisoners, and killed at least six thousand of the enemy. Adieu, my adorable Josephine. Think of me often. When you cease to love your Achilles, when your heart grows cool towards him, you wilt be very cruel, very unjust. But I am sure you will always continue my faithful mistress, as I shall ever remain your fond lover ('tendre amie'). Death alone can break the union which sympathy, love, and sentiment have formed. Let me have news of your health. A thousand and a thousand kisses.
It is impossible for me to avoid occasionally placing myself in the foreground in the course of these Memoirs. I owe it to myself to answer, though indirectly, to certain charges which, on various occasions, have been made against me. Some of the documents which I am about to insert belong, perhaps, less to the history of the General-in-Chief of the army of-Italy than to that of his secretary; but I must confess I wish to show that I was not an intruder, nor yet pursuing, as an obscure intriguer, the path of fortune. I was influenced much more by friendship than by ambition when I took a part on the scene where the rising-glory of the future Emperor already shed a lustre on all who were attached to his destiny. It will be seen by the following letters with what confidence I was then honoured; but these letters, dictated by friendship, and not written for history, speak also of our military achievements; and whatever brings to recollection the events of that heroic period must still be interesting to many.
HEADQUARTERS AT MILAN,
20th Prairial, year IV. (8th June 1796)
The General-in-Chief has ordered me, my dear Bourrienne, to make known to you the pleasure he experienced on hearing of you, and his ardent desire that you should join us. Take your departure, then, my dear Bourrienne, and arrive quickly. You may be certain of obtaining the testimonies of affection which are your due from all who know you; and we much regret that you were not with us to have a share in our success. The campaign which we have just concluded will be celebrated in the records of history. With less than 30,000 men, in a state of almost complete destitution, it is a fine thing to have, in the course of less than two months, beaten, eight different times, an army of from 65 to 70,000 men, obliged the King of Sardinia to make a humiliating peace, and driven the Austrians from Italy. The last victory, of which you have doubtless had an account, the passage of the Mincio, has closed our labours. There now remain for us the siege of Mantua and the castle of Milan; but these obstacles will not detain us long. Adieu, my dear Bourrienne: I repeat General Bonaparte's request that you should repair hither, and the testimony of his desire to see you.
Receive, etc., (Signed) MARMONT.
Chief of Brigade (Artillery) and Aide de camp to the General-in-Chief.
I was obliged to remain at Sens, soliciting my erasure from the emigrant list, which I did not obtain, however, till 1797, and to put an end to a charge made against me of having fabricated a certificate of residence. Meanwhile I applied myself to study, and preferred repose to the agitation of camps. For these reasons I did not then accept his friendly invitation, notwithstanding that I was very desirous of seeing my young college friend in the midst of his astonishing triumphs. Ten months after, I received another letter from Marmont, in the following terms:—
HEADQUARTERS GORIZIA
2d Germinal, year V. (22d March 1797)
The General-in-Chief, my dear Bourrienne, has ordered me to express to you his wish for your prompt arrival here. We have all along anxiously desired to see you, and look forward with great pleasure to the moment when we shall meet. I join with the General, my dear Bourrienne, in urging you to join the army without loss of time. You will increase a united family, happy to receive you into its bosom. I enclose an order written by the General, which will serve you as a passport. Take the post route and arrive as soon as you can. We are on the point of penetrating into Germany. The language is changing already, and in four days we shall hear no more Italian. Prince Charles has been well beaten, and we are pursuing him. If this campaign be fortunate, we may sign a peace, which is so necessary for Europe, in Vienna. Adieu, my dear Bourrienne: reckon for something the zeal of one who is much attached to you.
(Signed) MARMONT.
BONAPARTE, GENERAL-IN-CHIEF OF THE ARMY OF ITALY.
Headquarters, Gorizia, 2d Germinal, year V.
The citizen Bourrienne is to come to me on receipt of the present order.
(Signed) BONAPARTE.
The odious manner in which I was then harassed, I know not why, on the part of the Government respecting my certificate of residence, rendered my stay in France not very agreeable. I was even threatened with being put on my trial for having produced a certificate of residence which was alleged to be signed by nine false witnesses. This time, therefore, I resolved without hesitation to set out for the army. General Bonaparte's order, which I registered at the municipality of Sens, answered for a passport, which otherwise would probably have been refused me. I have always felt a strong sense of gratitude for his conduct towards me on this occasion.
Notwithstanding the haste I made to leave Sens, the necessary formalities and precautions detained me some days, and at the moment I was about to depart I received the following letter:
HEADQUARTERS, JUDENBOURG,
19th Germinal, Year V. (8th April 1797).
The General-in-Chief again orders me, my dear Bourrienne, to urge you to come to him quickly. We are in the midst of success and triumphs. The German campaign begins even more brilliantly than did the Italian. You may judge, therefore, what a promise it holds out to us. Come, my dear Bourrienne, immediately—yield to our solicitations—share our pains and pleasures, and you will add to our enjoyments.
I have directed the courier to pass through Sens, that he may deliver this letter to you, and bring me back your answer.
(Signed) MARMONT.
To the above letter this order was subjoined:
The citizen Fauvelet de Bourrienne is ordered to leave Sens, and repair immediately by post to the headquarters of the army of Italy.
(Signed) BONAPARTE.
I arrived at the Venetian territory at the moment when the insurrection against the French was on the point of breaking out. Thousands of peasants were instigated to rise under the pretext of appeasing the troubles of Bergamo and Brescia. I passed through Verona on the 16th of April, the eve of the signature of the preliminaries of Leoben and of the revolt of Verona. Easter Sunday was the day which the ministers of Jesus Christ selected for preaching "that it was lawful, and even meritorious, to kill Jacobins." Death to Frenchmen!—Death to Jacobins! as they called all the French, were their rallying cries. At the time I had not the slightest idea of this state of things, for I had left Sens only on the 11th of April.
After stopping two hours at Verona, I proceeded on my journey without being aware of the massacre which threatened that city. When about a league from the town I was, however, stopped by a party of insurgents on their way thither, consisting, as I estimated, of about two thousand men. They only desired me to cry 'El viva Santo Marco', an order with which I speedily complied, and passed on. What would have become of me had I been in Verona on the Monday? On that day the bells were rung, while the French were butchered in the hospitals. Every one met in the streets was put to death. The priests headed the assassins, and more than four hundred Frenchmen were thus sacrificed. The forts held out against the Venetians, though they attacked them with fury; but repossession of the town was not obtained until after ten days. On the very day of the insurrection of Verona some Frenchmen were assassinated between that city and Vicenza, through which I passed on the day before without danger; and scarcely had I passed through Padua, when I learned that others had been massacred there. Thus the assassinations travelled as rapidly as the post.
I shall say a few words respecting the revolt of the Venetian States, which, in consequence of the difference of political opinions, has been viewed in very contradictory lights.
The last days of Venice were approaching, and a storm had been brewing for more than a year. About the beginning of April 1797 the threatening symptoms of a general insurrection appeared. The quarrel commenced when the Austrians entered Peschiera, and some pretext was also afforded by the reception given to Monsieur, afterwards Louis XVIII. It was certain that Venice had made military preparations during the siege of Mantua in 1796. The interests of the aristocracy outweighed the political considerations in our favour. On, the 7th of June 1796 General Bonaparte wrote thus to the Executive Directory:
The Senate of Venice lately sent two judges of their Council here to ascertain definitively how things stand. I repeated my complaints. I spoke to them about the reception given to Monsieur. Should it be your plan to extract five or six millions from Venice, I have expressly prepared this sort of rupture for you. If your intentions be more decided, I think this ground of quarrel ought to be kept up. Let me know what you mean to do, and wait till the favourable moment, which I shall seize according to circumstances; for we must not have to do with all the world at once.
The Directory answered that the moment was not favourable; that it was first necessary to take Mantua, and give Wurmser a sound beating. However, towards the end of the year 1796 the Directory began to give more credit to the sincerity of the professions of neutrality made on the part of Venice. It was resolved, therefore, to be content with obtaining money and supplies for the army, and to refrain from violating the neutrality. The Directory had not then in reserve, like Bonaparte, the idea of making the dismemberment of Venice serve as a compensation for such of the Austrian possessions as the French Republic might retain.
In 1797 the expected favourable moment had arrived. The knell of Venice was rung; and Bonaparte thus wrote to the Directory on the 30th of April: "I am convinced that the only course to be now taken is to destroy this ferocious and sanguinary Government." On the 3d of May, writing from Palma Nuova, he says: "I see nothing that can be done but to obliterate the Venetian name from the face of the globe."
Towards the end of March 1797 the Government of Venice was in a desperate state. Ottolini, the Podesta of Bergamo, an instrument of tyranny in the hands of the State inquisitors, then harassed the people of Bergamo and Brescia, who, after the reduction of Mantua, wished to be separated from Venice. He drew up, to be sent to the Senate, a long report respecting the plans of separation, founded on information given him by a Roman advocate, named Marcelin Serpini; who pretended to have gleaned the facts he communicated in conversation with officers of the French army. The plan of the patriotic party was, to unite the Venetian territories on the mainland with Lombardy, and to form of the whole one republic. The conduct of Ottolini exasperated the party inimical to Venice, and augmented the prevailing discontent. Having disguised his valet as a peasant, he sent him off to Venice with the report he had drawn up on Serpini's communications, and other information; but this report never reached the inquisitors. The valet was arrested, his despatches taken, and Ottolini fled from Bergamo. This gave a beginning to the general rising of the Venetian States. In fact, the force of circumstances alone brought on the insurrection of those territories against their old insular government. General La Hoz, who commanded the Lombard Legion, was the active protector of the revolution, which certainly had its origin more in the progress of the prevailing principles of liberty than in the crooked policy of the Senate of Venice. Bonaparte, indeed, in his despatches to the Directory, stated that the Senate had instigated the insurrection; but that was not quite correct, and he could not wholly believe his own assertion.
Pending the vacillation of the Venetian Senate, Vienna was exciting the population of its States on the mainland to rise against the French. The Venetian Government had always exhibited an extreme aversion to the French Revolution, which had been violently condemned at Venice. Hatred of the French had been constantly excited and encouraged, and religious fanaticism had inflamed many persons of consequence in the country. From the end of 1796 the Venetian Senate secretly continued its armaments, and the whole conduct of that Government announced intentions which have been called perfidious, but the only object of which was to defeat intentions still more perfidious. The Senate was the irreconcilable enemy of the French Republic. Excitement was carried to such a point that in many places the people complained that they were not permitted to arm against the French. The Austrian generals industriously circulated the most sinister reports respecting the armies of the Sombre-et-Meuse and the Rhine, and the position of the French troops in the Tyrol. These impostures, printed in bulletins, were well calculated to instigate the Italians, and especially the Venetians, to rise in mass to exterminate the French, when the victorious army should penetrate into the Hereditary States.
The pursuit of the Archduke Charles into the heart of Austria encouraged the hopes which the Venetian Senate had conceived, that it would be easy to annihilate the feeble remnant of the French army, as the troops were scattered through the States of Venice on the mainland. Wherever the Senate had the ascendency, insurrection was secretly fomented; wherever the influence of the patriots prevailed, ardent efforts were made to unite the Venetian terra firma to the Lombard Republic.
Bonaparte skillfully took advantage of the disturbances, and the massacres consequent on them, to adopt towards the Senate the tone of an offended conqueror. He published a declaration that the Venetian Government was the most treacherous imaginable. The weakness and cruel hypocrisy of the Senate facilitated the plan he had conceived of making a peace for France at the expense of the Venetian Republic. On returning from Leoben, a conqueror and pacificator, he, without ceremony, took possession of Venice, changed the established government, and, master of all the Venetian territory, found himself, in the negotiations of Campo Formio, able to dispose of it as he pleased, as a compensation for the cessions which had been exacted from Austria. After the 19th of May he wrote to the Directory that one of the objects of his treaty with Venice was to avoid bringing upon us the odium of violating the preliminaries relative to the Venetian territory, and, at the same time, to afford pretexts and to facilitate their execution.
At Campo Formio the fate of this republic was decided. It disappeared from the number of States without effort or noise. The silence of its fall astonished imaginations warmed by historical recollections from the brilliant pages of its maritime glory. Its power, however, which had been silently undermined, existed no longer except in the prestige of those recollections. What resistance could it have opposed to the man destined to change the face of all Europe?
