CHAPTER XXI
THE SCHEDULE OF THE DIRECTORY
We have said that Moreau, furnished no doubt with instructions,
left the little house in the Rue de la Victoire, while Bonaparte
returned alone to the salon. Everything furnished an object of
comment in such a company as was there assembled; the absence of
Moreau, the return of Bonaparte unaccompanied, and the visible
good humor which animated his countenance, were all remarked
upon.
The eyes which fastened upon him most ardently were those of
Josephine and Roland. Moreau for Bonaparte added twenty chances
to the success of the plot; Moreau against Bonaparte robbed him
of fifty. Josephine's eyes were so supplicating that, on leaving
Lucien, Bonaparte pushed his brother toward his wife. Lucien
understood, and approached Josephine, saying: "All is well."
"Moreau?"
"With us."
"I thought he was a Republican."
"He has been made to see that we are acting for the good of the
Republic."
"I should have thought him ambitious," said Roland.
Lucien started and looked at the young man.
"You are right," said he.
"Then," remarked Josephine, "if he is ambitious he will not let
Bonaparte seize the power."
"Why not?"
"Because he will want it himself."
"Yes; but he will wait till it comes to him ready-made, inasmuch
as he doesn't know how to create it, and is afraid to seize it."
During this time Bonaparte had joined the group which had formed
around Talma after dinner, as well as before. Remarkable men
are always the centre of attraction.
"What are you saying, Talma?" demanded Bonaparte. "It seems to
me they are listening to you very attentively."
"Yes, but my reign is over," replied the artist.
"Why so?"
"I do as citizen Barras has done; I abdicate?"
"So citizen Barras has abdicated?"
"So rumor says."
"Is it known who will take his place?"
"It is surmised."
"Is it one of your friends, Talma?"
"Time was," said Talma, bowing, "when he did me the honor to say
I was his."
"Well, in that case, Talma, I shall ask for your influence."
"Granted," said Talma, laughing; "it only remains to ask how it
can serve you."
"Get me sent back to Italy; Barras would not let me go."
"The deuce!" said Talma; "don't you know the song, general, 'We
won't go back to the woods when the laurels are clipped'?"
"Oh! Roscius, Roscius!" said Bonaparte, smiling, "have you grown
a flatterer during my absence?"
"Roscius was the friend of Cæsar, general, and when the conqueror
returned from Gaul he probably said to him about the same thing
I have said to you."
Bonaparte laid his band on Talma's shoulder.
"Would he have said the same words after crossing the Rubicon?"
Talma looked Bonaparte straight in the face.
"No," he replied; "he would have said, like the augur, 'Cæsar,
beware of the Ides of March!'"
Bonaparte slipped his hand into his breast as if in search of
something; finding the dagger of the Companions of Jehu, he grasped
it convulsively. Had he a presentiment of the conspiracies of
Arena, Saint-Regent, and Cadoudal?
Just then the door opened and a servant announced: "General
Bernadotte!"
"Bernadotte," muttered Bonaparte, involuntarily. "What does he
want here?"
Since Bonaparte's return, Bernadotte had held aloof from him,
refusing all the advances which the general-in-chief and his
friends had made him. The fact is, Bernadotte had long since
discerned the politician beneath the soldier's greatcoat, the
dictator beneath the general, and Bernadotte, for all that he
became king in later years, was at that time a very different
Republican from Moreau. Moreover, Bernadotte believed he had
reason to complain of Bonaparte. His military career had not
been less brilliant than that of the young general; his fortunes
were destined to run parallel with his to the end, only, more
fortunate than that other--Bernadotte was to die on his throne.
It is true, he did not conquer that throne; he was called to
it.
Son of a lawyer at Pau, Bernadotte, born in 1764--that is to
say, five years before Bonaparte--was in the ranks as a private
soldier when only eighteen. In 1789 he was only a sergeant-major.
But those were the days of rapid promotion. In 1794, Kléber created
him brigadier-general on the field of battle, where he had decided
the fortunes of the day. Becoming a general of division, he played
a brilliant part at Fleurus and Juliers, forced Maestricht to
capitulate, took Altdorf, and protected, against an army twice as
numerous as his own, the retreat of Joubert. In 1797 the Directory
ordered him to take seventeen thousand men to Bonaparte. These
seventeen thousand men were his old soldiers, veterans of Kléber,
Marceau and Hoche, soldiers of the Sambre-et-Meuse; and yet
Bernadotte forgot all rivalry and seconded Bonaparte with all his
might, taking part in the passage of the Tagliamento, capturing
Gradiska, Trieste, Laybach, Idria, bringing back to the Directory,
after the campaign, the flags of the enemy, and accepting, possibly
with reluctance, an embassy to Vienna, while Bonaparte secured
the command of the army of Egypt.
At Vienna, a riot, excited by the tri-color flag hoisted above
the French embassy, for which the ambassador was unable to obtain
redress, forced him to demand his passports. On his return to
Paris, the Directory appointed him Minister of War. An underhand
proceeding of Sièyes, who was offended by Bernadotte's republicanism,
induced the latter to send in his resignation. It was accepted,
and when Bonaparte landed at Fréjus the late minister had been
three months out of office. Since Bonaparte's return, some of
Bernadotte's friends had sought to bring about his reinstatement;
but Bonaparte had opposed it. The result was a hostility between
the two generals, none the less real because not openly avowed.
Bernadotte's appearance in Bonaparte's salon was therefore an
event almost as extraordinary as the presence of Moreau. And
the entrance of the conqueror of Maestricht caused as many heads
to turn as had that of the conqueror of Rastadt. Only, instead
of going forward to meet him, as he had Moreau, Bonaparte merely
turned round and awaited him.
Bernadotte, from the threshold of the door, cast a rapid glance
around the salon. He divided and analyzed the groups, and although
he must have perceived Bonaparte in the midst of the principal
one, he went up to Josephine, who was reclining on a couch at
the corner of the fireplace, like the statue of Agrippina in
the Pitti, and, addressing her with chivalric courtesy, inquired
for her health; then only did he raise his head as if to look for
Bonaparte. At such a time everything was of too much importance
for those present not to remark this affectation of courtesy on
Bernadotte's part.
Bonaparte, with his rapid, comprehensive intellect, was not the
last to notice this; he was seized with impatience, and, instead
of awaiting Bernadotte in the midst of the group where he happened
to be, he turned abruptly to the embrasure of a window, as if
to challenge the ex-minister of war to follow him. Bernadotte
bowed graciously to right and left, and controlling his usually
mobile face to an expression of perfect calmness, he walked toward
Bonaparte, who awaited him as a wrestler awaits his antagonist,
the right foot forward and his lips compressed. The two men bowed,
but Bonaparte made no movement to extend his hand to Bernadotte,
nor did the latter offer to take it.
"Is it you?" asked Bonaparte. "I am glad to see you."
"Thank you, general," replied Bernadotte. "I have come because
I wish to give you a few explanations."
"I did not recognize you at first."
"Yet I think, general, that my name was announced by your servant
in a voice loud enough to prevent any doubt as to my identity."
"Yes, but he announced General Bernadotte."
"Well?"
"Well, I saw a man in civilian's dress, and though I recognized
you, I doubted if it were really you."
For some time past Bernadotte had affected to wear civilian's
dress in preference to his uniform.
"You know," said he, laughing, "that I am only half a soldier
now. I was retired by citizen Sièyes."
"It seems that it was lucky for me that you were no longer minister
of war when I landed at Fréjus."
"How so?"
"You said, so I was told, that had you received the order to arrest
me for violating quarantine you would have done so."
"I said it, and I repeat it, general. As a soldier I was always
a faithful observer of discipline. As a minister I was a slave
to law."
Bonaparte bit his lips. "And will you say, after that, that you
have not a personal enmity to me?"
"A personal enmity to you, general?" replied Bernadotte. "Why
should I have? We have always gone together, almost in the same
stride; I was even made general before you. While my campaigns
on the Rhine were less brilliant than yours on the Adige, they
were not less profitable for the Republic; and when I had the
honor to serve under you, you found in me, I hope, a subordinate
devoted, if not to the man, at least to the country which he
served. It is true that since your departure, general, I have
been more fortunate than you in not having the responsibility
of a great army, which, if one may believe Kléber's despatches,
you have left in a disastrous position."
"What do you mean? Kléber's last despatches? Has Kléber written?"
"Are you ignorant of that, general? Has the Directory not informed
you of the complaints of your successor? That would be a great
weakness on their part, and I congratulate myself to have come
here, not only to correct in your mind what has been said of
me, but to tell you what is being said of you."
Bonaparte fixed an eye, darkling as an eagle's, on Bernadotte.
"And what are they saying of me?" he asked.
"They say that, as you must come back, you should have brought
the army with you."
"Had I a fleet? Are you unaware that De Brueys allowed his to
be burned?"
"They also say, general, that, being unable to bring back the
army, it would have been better for your renown had you remained
with it."
"That is what I should have done, monsieur, if events had not
recalled me to France."
"What events, general?"
"Your defeats."
"Pardon me, general; you mean to say Schérer's defeats.
"Yours as well."
"I was not answerable for the generals commanding our armies
on the Rhine and in Italy until I was minister of war. If you
will enumerate the victories and defeats since that time you
will see on which side the scale turns."
"You certainly do not intend to tell me that matters are in a
good condition?"
"No, but I do say that they are not in so desperate state as you
affect to believe."
"As I affect!--Truly, general, to hear you one would think I
had some interest in lowering France in the eyes of foreigners.
"I don't say that; I say that I wish to settle the balance of
our victories and defeats for the last three months; and as I
came for that, and am now in your house, and in the position
of an accused person--"
"Or an accuser."
"As the accused, in the first instance--I begin."
"And I listen," said Bonaparte, visibly on thorns.
"My ministry dates from the 30th Prairial, the 8th of June if
you prefer; we will not quarrel over words."
"Which means that we shall quarrel about things."
Bernadotte continued without replying.
"I became minister, as I said, the 8th of June; that is, a short
time after the siege of Saint-Jean-d'Acre was raised."
Bonaparte bit his lips. "I did not raise the siege until after
I had ruined the fortifications," he replied.
"That is not what Kléber wrote; but that does not concern me."
Then he added, smiling: "It happened while Clark was minister."
There was a moment's silence, during which Bonaparte endeavored
to make Bernadotte lower his eyes. Not succeeding, he said: "Go on."
Bernadotte bowed and continued: "Perhaps no minister of war--and
the archives of the ministry are there for reference--ever received
the portfolio under more critical circumstances: civil war within,
a foreign enemy at our doors, discouragement rife among our veteran
armies, absolute destitution of means to equip new ones. That was
what I had to face on the 8th of June, when I entered upon my
duties. An active correspondence, dating from the 8th of June,
between the civil and military authorities, revived their courage
and their hopes. My addresses to the armies--this may have been a
mistake--were those, not of a minister to his soldiers, but of a
comrade among comrades, just as my addresses to the administrators
were those of a citizen to his fellow-citizens. I appealed to
the courage of the army, and the heart of the French people; I
obtained all that I had asked. The National Guard reorganized
with renewed zeal; legions were formed upon the Rhine, on the
Moselle. Battalions of veterans took the place of old regiments
to reinforce the troops that were guarding our frontiers; to-day
our cavalry is recruited by a remount of forty thousand horses,
and one hundred thousand conscripts, armed and equipped, have
received with cries of 'Vive la Republique!' the flags under
which they will fight and conquer--"
"But," interrupted Bonaparte bitterly, "this is an apology you
are making for yourself."
"Be it so. I will divide my discourse into two parts. The first
will be a contestable apology; the second an array of incontestable
facts. I will set aside the apology and proceed to facts. June
17 and 18, the battle of the Trebbia. Macdonald wished to fight
without Moreau; he crossed the Trebbia, attacked the enemy, was
defeated and retreated to Modena. June 20, battle of Tortona;
Moreau defeated the Austrian Bellegarde. July 22, surrender of
the citadel of Alexandria to the Austro-Russians. So far the
scale turns to defeat. July 30, surrender of Mantua, another
check. August 15, battle of Novi; this time it was more than a
check, it was a defeat. Take note of it, general, for it is the
last. At the very moment we were fighting at Novi, Masséna was
maintaining his position at Zug and Lucerne, and strengthening
himself on the Aar and on the Rhine; while Lecourbe, on August
14 and 15, took the Saint-Gothard. August 19, battle of Bergen;
Brune defeated the Anglo-Russian army, forty thousand strong,
and captured the Russian general, Hermann. On the 25th, 26th
and 27th of the same month, the battles of Zurich, where Masséna
defeated the Austro-Russians under Korsakoff. Hotze and three other
generals are taken prisoners. The enemy lost twelve thousand men,
a hundred cannon, and all its baggage; the Austrians, separated
from the Russians, could not rejoin them until after they were
driven beyond Lake Constance. That series of victories stopped
the progress the enemy had been making since the beginning of
the campaign; from the time Zurich was retaken, France was secure
from invasion. August 30, Molitor defeated the Austrian generals,
Jellachich and Luiken, and drove them back into the Grisons.
September 1, Molitor attacked and defeated General Rosenberg in the
Mutterthal. On the 2d, Molitor forced Souvaroff to evacuate Glarus,
to abandon his wounded, his cannon, and sixteen hundred prisoners.
The 6th, General Brune again defeated the Anglo-Russians, under
the command of the Duke of York. On the 7th, General Gazan took
possession of Constance. On the 8th you landed at Fréjus.--Well,
general," continued Bernadotte, "as France will probably pass
into your hands, it is well that you should know the state in
which you find her, and in place of receipt, our possessions
bear witness to what we are giving you. What we are now doing,
general, is history, and it is important that those who may some
day have an interest in falsifying history shall find in their
path the denial of Bernadotte."
"Is that said for my benefit, general?"
"I say that for flatterers. You have pretended, it is said, that
you returned to France because our armies were destroyed, because
France was threatened, the Republic at bay. You may have left
Egypt with that fear; but once in France, all such fears must
have given way to a totally different belief."
"I ask no better than to believe as you do," replied Bonaparte,
with sovereign dignity; "and the more grand and powerful you prove
France to be, the more grateful am I to those who have secured her
grandeur and her power."
"Oh, the result is plain, general! Three armies defeated; the
Russians exterminated, the Austrians defeated and forced to fly,
twenty thousand prisoners, a hundred pieces of cannon, fifteen
flags, all the baggage of the enemy in our possession, nine generals
taken or killed, Switzerland free, our frontiers safe, the Rhine
our limit--so much for Masséna's contingent and the situation
of Helvetia. The Anglo-Russian army twice defeated, utterly
discouraged, abandoning its artillery, baggage, munitions of
war and commissariat, even to the women and children who came
with the British; eight thousand French prisoners; effective
men, returned to France; Holland completely evacuated--so much
for Brune's contingent and the situation in Holland. The rearguard
of General Klénau forced to lay down its arms at Villanova; a
thousand prisoners and three pieces of cannon fallen into our
hands, and the Austrians driven back beyond Bormida; in all,
counting the combats at la Stura and Pignerol, four thousand
prisoners, sixteen cannon, Mondovi, and the occupation of the
whole region between la Stura and Tanaro--so much for Championnet's
contingent and the situation in Italy. Two hundred thousand men
under arms, forty thousand mounted cavalry; that is my contingent,
mine, and the situation in France."
"But," asked Bonaparte satirically, "if you have, as you say,
two hundred thousand soldiers under arms, why do you want me to
bring back the fifteen or twenty thousand men I have in Egypt,
who are useful there as colonizers?"
"If I ask you for them, general, it is not for any need we may
have of them, but in the fear of some disaster over taking them."
"What disaster do you expect to befall them, commanded by Kléber?"
"Kléber may be killed, general; and who is there behind Kléber?
Menou. Kléber and your twenty thousand men are doomed, general!"
"How doomed?"
"Yes, the Sultan will send troops; he controls by land. The English
will send their fleet; they control by sea. We, who have neither
land nor sea, will be compelled to take part from here in the
evacuation of Egypt and the capitulation of our army.
"You take a gloomy view of things, general!"
"The future will show which of us two have seen things as they are."
"What would you have done in my place?"
"I don't know. But, even had I been forced to bring them back
by way of Constantinople, I should never have abandoned those
whom France had intrusted to me. Xenophon, on the banks of the
Tigris, was in a much more desperate situation than you on the
banks of the Nile. He brought his ten thousand back to Ionia, and
they were not the children of Athens, not his fellow citizens;
they were mercenaries!"
From the instant Bernadotte uttered the word Constantinople,
Bonaparte listened no longer; the name seemed to rouse a new train
of ideas in his mind, which he followed in solitary thought. He laid
his hand on the arm of the astonished Bernadotte, and, with eyes
fixed on space, like a man who pursues through space the phantom of
a vanished project, he said: "Yes, yes! I thought of it. That is
why I persisted in taking that hovel, Saint-Jean-d'Acre. Here you
only thought it obstinacy, a useless waste of men sacrificed to
the self-love of a mediocre general who feared that he might be
blamed for a defeat. What should I have cared for the raising of
the siege of Saint-Jean-d'Acre, if Saint-Jean-d'Acre had not been
the barrier in the way of the grandest project ever conceived.
Cities! Why, good God! I could take as many as ever did Alexander
or Cæsar, but it was Saint-Jean-d'Acre that had to be taken! If
I had taken Saint-Jean-d'Acre, do you know what I should have
done?"
And he fixed his burning eyes upon Bernadotte, who, this time,
lowered his under the flame of this genius.
"What I should have done," repeated Bonaparte, and, like Ajax, he
seemed to threaten Heaven with his clinched fist; "if I had taken
Saint-Jean-d'Acre, I should have found the treasures of the pasha
in the city and three thousand stands of arms. With that I should
have raised and armed all Syria, so maddened by the ferocity of
Djezzar that each time I attacked him the population prayed to God
for his overthrow. I should have marched upon Damascus and Aleppo;
I should have swelled my army with the malcontents. Advancing into
the country, I should, step by step, have proclaimed the abolition
of slavery, and the annihilation of the tyrannical government
of the pashas. I should have overthrown the Turkish empire, and
founded a great empire at Constantinople, which would have fixed
my place in history higher than Constantine and Mohammed II.
Perhaps I should have returned to Paris by way of Adrianople
and Vienna, after annihilating the house of Austria. Well, my
dear general, that is the project which that little hovel of
a Saint-Jean-d'Acre rendered abortive!"
And he so far forgot to whom he was speaking, as he followed
the shadows of his vanished dream, that he called Bernadotte
"my dear general." The latter, almost appalled by the magnitude
of the project which Bonaparte had unfolded to him, made a step
backward.
"Yes," said Bernadotte, "I perceive what you want, for you have
just betrayed yourself. Orient or Occident, a throne! A throne?
So be it; why not? Count upon me to help you conquer it, but
elsewhere than in France. I am a Republican, and I will die a
Republican."
Bonaparte shook his head as if to disperse the thoughts which
held him in the clouds.
"I, too, am a Republican," said he, "but see what has come of
your Republic!"
"What matter!" cried Bernadotte. "It is not to a word or a form
that I am faithful, but to the principle. Let the Directors but
yield me the power, and I would know how to defend the Republic
against her internal enemies, even as I defended her from her
foreign enemies."
As he said these words, Bernadotte raised his eyes, and his glance
encountered that of Bonaparte. Two naked blades clashing together
never sent forth lightning more vivid, more terrible.
Josephine had watched the two men for some time past with anxious
attention. She saw the dual glance teeming with reciprocal menace.
She rose hastily and went to Bernadotte.
"General," said she.
Bernadotte bowed.
"You are intimate with Gohier, are you not?" she continued.
"He is one of my best friends, madame," said Bernadotte.
"Well, we dine with him the day after to-morrow, the 18th Brumaire;
dine there yourself and bring Madame Bernadotte. I should be so
glad to know her better."
"Madame," said Bernadotte, "in the days of the Greeks you would
have been one of the three graces; in the Middle Ages you would
have been a fairy; to-day you are the most adorable woman I know."
And making three steps backward, and bowing, he contrived to
retire politely without including Bonaparte in his bow. Josephine
followed him with her eyes until he had left the room. Then,
turning to her husband, she said: "Well, it seems that it was
not as successful with Bernadotte as with Moreau, was it?"
"Bold, adventurous, disinterested, sincere republican, inaccessible
to seduction, he is a human obstacle. We must make our way around
him, since we cannot overthrow him."
And leaving the salon without taking leave of any one, he went
to his study, whither Roland and Bourrienne followed. They had
hardly been there a quarter of an hour when the handle of the
lock turned softly, the door opened, and Lucien appeared.
