Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/208

Rh 196 NAPOLEON [1795- Cliecks revolt of the sections heightened by a check they inflicted upon General Menou, who, in attempting to disarm the section Lepelletier, was imprisoned in the Rue Yivienne, and could only extricate himself by concluding a sort of capitulation with the insurgents. Thereupon the Convention, alarmed, put Menou under arrest, and gave the command of the armed force of Paris and of the army of the interior to Barras, a leading politician of the day, who had acquired a sort of military reputation by having held several times the post of Representative in Mission. Barras knew the army of Italy and the services which Bonaparte had rendered at Toulon, and nominated him second in command. It does not seem that Bonaparte showed any remarkable firmness of character or originality of genius in meeting the revolt of the sections on the next day (Venddmiaire 13, i.e., 5th October) with grape shot. The disgrace of Menou was a warning that the Convention required de cisive action, and the invidiousness of the act fell upon Barras, not upon Bonaparte. Indeed in the official report drawn by Bonaparte himself his own name scarcely appears ; instead of assuming courageously the responsi bility of the deed, he took great pains to shirk it. He appeared in the matter merely as the instrument, as the skilful artillerist, by whom Barras and the Convention carried their resolute policy into effect. It will be observed that on this occasion he defends the cause of Jacobinism. This does not require to be explained, as at a later time he took much pains to explain it, by the consideration that, odious as Jacobinism was, on this particular occasion it was identified with &quot; the great truths of our Revolution.&quot; Bonaparte at this period appears uniformly as a Jacobin. He was at the moment an official in the Jacobin Govern ment, and speaks in his letters of the party of the sections just as a Government official might be expected to do. In this affair he produced an impression of real military capacity among the leading men of France, and placed Barras himself under a personal obligation. He was re warded by being appointed in succession to Barras, who now resigned, commander of the army of the interior. In this position, political and military at the same time, he preluded to the part reserved for him later of First Consul and Emperor. He also strengthened his new position Marriage, materially by his marriage with Josephine de Beauharnais, nee Tascher. The Bonaparte legend tells of a youth call ing upon him to claim the sword of his father, guillotined in the Terror, of Bonaparte treating the youth kindly, of his mother paying a visit of thanks to the general, of an attachment following. But even if Bonaparte was really attached to Josephine, we must not think of the match as one of mere unworldly affection. It was scarcely less splendid for the young general Bonaparte than his second match was for the emperor Napoleon. Josephine was prominent in Parisian society, and for the lonely Corsican, so completely without connexions in Paris, or even in France, such an alliance was of priceless value. She had not much either of character or intellect, but real sweet ness of disposition. Her personal charm was not so much that of beauty as of grace, social tact, and taste in dress. The act of marriage is dated Ventose 19, year IV. (i.e., 9th March 1796). On this day Bonaparte had already been appointed to the command of the army of Italy. His great European career now begins. The fourth year of the Revolutionary War was opening. The peculiar characteristic of that war is that, having been for France, at the commencement, a national war of libera tion on the grandest scale, it changed its character after two years and became an equally unprecedented national war of conquest. The conquest of Austrian Flanders had been made in 1794, that of Holland in the winter of the same year. The whole left bank of the Rhine was in Com mander of army of Italy. French occupation, and the war had passed over to the right bank. The question was no longer of the principles of the Revolution, but only of inducing the emperor and the Germanic body to conclude treaties in which Belgium and the left bank should be ceded. It was a war for territory similar to so many wars of the 18th century, but exceeding all of them in the energy with which it was conducted and the extent which it covered. Never had the warlike spirit been so predominant before in Europe. Bonaparte did not introduce, but found already intro duced, the principle of conquest. Prussia, with most of the North-German princes and Spain, had retired from the war early in 1795. Austria was now the great enemy of France by land. Accordingly the direct struggle was waged chiefly on the upper Rhine, where Austria had then extensive territories. But Austria could also be attacked on the side of Italy, where she possessed the duchy of Milan. On this side, however, a less important belligerent intervened, viz., Sardinia. It was natural to suppose that Sardinia, which since 1792 had lost Savoy and Nice, which since the military regeneration of France could not expect victory, and which had been in the habit of regarding Austria rather as a rival than as a friend, would gladly be quit of the war. Could she but be pushed aside, Austria might be attacked on the plains of Lombardy. Bonaparte had nursed this idea ever since he had been connected with the army of Italy ; since Vende&quot;miaire he had discussed it with Carnot, and it was Carnot, now one of the five Directors, who, as he himself tells us, procured Bonaparte s appointment to the Italian command. But not only Austria could be attacked in Italy. The French Revolution, by undertaking a sort of crusade against monarchy, had furnished itself with a justification for attacking almost all states alike, for almost all were either monarchical or at least aristocratic. Italy was full of small states which could be attacked as Mainz or Holland had been attacked before. Tuscany had an Austrian prince; Rome was the patron of the pretres insermentes; Venice was aristocratic. Bonaparte instinctively saw that he had a charter for indiscriminate conquest and plunder. He announced this to the army without the least disguise : &quot; Soldiers, you are naked and ill fed; I will lead you into the most fruitful plains in the world. Rich provinces, great cities will be in your power. There you will find honour and fame and wealth ! &quot; In this announcement is the key to the history of Europe for the next twenty years. This order of the day was issued from Nice, where Italian Bonaparte had arrived on March 27th. The campaign campaign, began on April 10th. This, the first of Bonaparte s cam paigns, has been compared to his last. As in 1815 he tried to separate Bliicher and Wellington, hoping to over come them in turn, so now with more success he attacked first the Austrians under Beaulieu and then the Sardinians under Colli. Defeating the Austriaus at Montenotte, Millesimo, and Dego, he turned on the 15th against Colli, defeated him at Ceva, then at Mondovi, and concluded the convention of Cherasco on the 28th. By this con vention, which was soon after turned into a treaty of peace, Sardinia was severed from the Coalition, and her principal fortresses put into the hands of France. What Bonaparte had so long dreamed of he accomplished in a single month, and turned himself at once to the conquest of Lombardy. The month of May was devoted to the invasion. On the 7th he crossed the Po at Piacenza, stormed the bridge over the Adda at Lodi on the llth, and, as the archduke who governed Lombardy had quitted Milan on the 9th, retiring by Bergamo into Germany, Bonaparte entered