CHAPTER XLIV
CHANGE OF RESIDENCE
That same day, the First Consul, left alone with Bourrienne,
dictated the following order, addressed to the Consulate guard
and to the army at large:
Washington is dead! That great man fought against tyranny. He
consolidated the liberty of America. His memory will ever be dear
to the French people, to all free men in both hemispheres, but
especially to the French soldiers, who, like Washington and his
soldiers, have fought for Liberty and Equality. Consequently, the
First Consul orders that the flags and banners of the Republic
shall be hung with crape for ten days.
But the First Consul did not intend to confine himself to this
order of the day.
Among the means he took to facilitate his removal from the Luxembourg
to the Tuileries was one of those fêtes by which he knew, none better,
how to amuse the eyes and also direct the minds of the spectator. This
fête was to take place at the Invalides, or, as they said in those
days, the Temple of Mars. A bust of Washington was to be crowned, and
the flags of Aboukir were to be received from the hands of General
Lannes.
It was one of those combinations which Bonaparte thoroughly
understood--a flash of lightning drawn from the contact of
contrasting facts. He presented the great man of the New World,
and a great victory of the old; young America coupled with the
palms of Thebes and Memphis.
On the day fixed for the ceremony, six thousand cavalry were
in line from the Luxembourg to the Invalides. At eight o'clock,
Bonaparte mounted his horse in the main courtyard of the Consular
palace; issuing by the Rue de Tournon he took the line of the
quays, accompanied by a staff of generals, none of whom were
over thirty-five years of age.
Lannes headed the procession; behind him were sixty Guides
bearing the sixty captured flags; then came Bonaparte about
two horse's-lengths ahead of his staff.
The minister of war, Berthier, awaited the procession under the
dome of the temple. He leaned against a statue of Mars at rest,
and the ministers and councillors of state were grouped around
him. The flags of Denain and Fontenoy, and those of the first
campaign in Italy, were already suspended from the columns which
supported the roof. Two centenarian "Invalids" who had fought
beside Maréchal Saxe were standing, one to the right and one
to the left of Berthier, like caryatides of an ancient world,
gazing across the centuries. To the right, on a raised platform,
was the bust of Washington, which was now to be draped with the
flags of Aboukir. On another platform, opposite to the former,
stood Bonaparte's armchair.
On each side of the temple were tiers of seats in which was gathered
all the elegant society of Paris, or rather that portion of it which
gave its adhesion to the order of ideas then to be celebrated.
When the flags appeared, the trumpets blared, their metallic sounds
echoing through the arches of the temple,
Lannes entered first. At a sign from him, the Guides mounted
two by two the steps of the platform and placed the staffs of
the flags in the holders prepared for them. During this time
Bonaparte took his place in the chair,
Then Lannes advanced to the minister of war, and, in that voice
that rang out so clearly on the battlefield, crying "Forward!"
he said:
"Citizen minister, these are the flags of the Ottoman army, destroyed
before your eyes at Aboukir. The army of Egypt, after crossing
burning deserts, surviving thirst and hunger, found itself before
an enemy proud of his numbers and his victories, and believing
that he saw an easy prey in our troops, exhausted by their march
and incessant combats. He had yet to learn that the French soldier
is greater because he knows how to suffer than because he knows how
to vanquish, and that his courage rises and augments in danger.
Three thousand Frenchmen, as you know, fell upon eighteen thousand
barbarians, broke their ranks, forced them back, pressed them
between our lines and the sea; and the terror of our bayonets
is such that the Mussulmans, driven to choose a death, rushed
into the depths of the Mediterranean.
"On that memorable day hung the destinies of Egypt, France and
Europe, and they were saved by your courage,
"Allied Powers! if you dare to violate French territory, and if
the general who was given back to us by the victory of Aboukir
makes an appeal to the nation--Allied Powers! I say to you, that
your successes would be more fatal to you than disasters! What
Frenchman is there who would not march to victory again under
the banners of the First Consul, or serve his apprenticeship to
fame with him?"
Then, addressing the "Invalids," for whom the whole lower gallery
had been reserved, he continued in a still more powerful voice:
"And you, brave veterans, honorable victims of the fate of battles,
you will not be the last to flock under the orders of him who
knows your misfortunes and your glory, and who now delivers to
your keeping these trophies won by your valor. Ah, I know you,
veterans, you burn to sacrifice the half of your remaining lives
to your country and its freedom!"
This specimen of the military eloquence of the conqueror of
Montebello was received with deafening applause. Three times
the minister of war endeavored to make reply; and three times
the bravos cut him short. At last, however, silence came, and
Berthier expressed himself as follows:
"To raise on the banks of the Seine these trophies won on the
banks of the Nile; to hang beneath the domes of our temples,
beside the flags of Vienna, of Petersburg, of London, the banners
blessed in the mosques of Byzantium and Cairo; to see them here,
presented by the same warriors, young in years, old in glory,
whom Victory has so often crowned--these things are granted only
to Republican France.
"Yet this is but a part of what he has done, that hero, in the
flower of his age covered with the laurels of Europe, he, who
stood a victor before the Pyramids, from the summits of which
forty centuries looked down upon him while, surrounded by his
warriors and learned men, he emancipated the native soil of art
and restored to it the lights of civilization.
"Soldiers, plant in this temple of the warrior virtues those
ensigns of the Crescent, captured on the rocks of Canopus by
three thousand Frenchmen from eighteen thousand Ottomans, as
brave as they were barbarous. Let them bear witness, not to the
valor of the French soldier--the universe itself resounds to
that--but to his unalterable constancy, his sublime devotion.
Let the sight of these banners console you, veteran warriors,
you, whose bodies, gloriously mutilated on the field of honor,
deprive your courage of other exercise than hope and prayer.
Let them proclaim from that dome above us, to all the enemies
of France, the influence of genius, the value of the heroes who
captured them; forewarning of the horrors of war all those who
are deaf to our offers of peace. Yes, if they will have war,
they shall have it--war, terrible and unrelenting!
"The nation, satisfied, regards the Army of the East with pride.
"That invincible army will learn with joy that the First Consul is
watchful of its glory. It is the object of the keenest solicitude
on the part of the Republic. It will hear with pride that we have
honored it in our temples, while awaiting the moment when we
shall imitate, if need be, on the fields of Europe, the warlike
virtues it has displayed on the burning sands of Africa and Asia.
"Come, in the name of that army, intrepid general, come in the
name of those heroes among whom you now appear, and receive an
embrace in token of the national gratitude.
"And in the moment when we again take up our arms in defence of
our independence (if the blind fury of kings refuses the peace we
offer), let us cast a branch of laurel on the ashes of Washington,
that hero who freed America from the yoke of our worst and most
implacable enemy. Let his illustrious shade tell us of the glory
which follows a nation's liberator beyond the grave!"
Bonaparte now came down from his platform, and in the name of
France was embraced by Berthier.
M. de Fontanes, who was appointed to pronounce the eulogy on
Washington, waited courteously until the echoes of the torrent
of applause, which seemed to fall in cascades through the vast
amphitheatre, had died away. In the midst of these glorious
individualities, M. de Fontanes was a curiosity, half political,
half literary. After the 18th Fructidor he was proscribed with
Suard and Laharpe; but, being perfectly hidden in a friend's
house, and never going out except at night, he managed to avoid
leaving France. Nevertheless, an accident, impossible to foresee,
had betrayed him. He was knocked down one night on the Place du
Carrousel by a runaway horse, and was recognized by a policeman,
who ran to his assistance. But Fouché, who was at once informed,
not only of his presence in France, but also of his actual
hiding-place, pretended to know nothing of him.
A few days after the 18th Brumaire, Maret, who became later the
Duc de Bassano, Laplace, who continued to be simply a man of
science, and Regnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angely, who died mad, spoke
to the First Consul of M. de Fontanes and of his presence in
Paris,
"Present him to me," replied the First Consul simply.
M. de Fontanes was presented to Bonaparte, who, recognizing his
supple nature and the unctuous flattery of his eloquence, chose
him to deliver the eulogy on Washington, and perhaps something
of his own at the same time.
M. de Fontanes' address was too long to be reported here; all that
we shall say about it is, that it was precisely what Bonaparte
desired.
That evening there was a grand reception at the Luxembourg. During
the ceremony a rumor was spread that the First Consul contemplated
removing to the Tuileries. Persons who were either bold or curious
ventured on a few words to Josephine. She, poor woman, who still
saw before her the tumbrel and the scaffold of Marie Antoinette,
had an instinctive horror of all that might connect her with
royalty; she therefore hesitated to reply and referred all questions
to her husband.
Then another rumor began to be bruited about which served as a
counterpoise to the former. Murat, it was said, had asked the
hand of Mademoiselle Caroline Bonaparte in marriage. But this
marriage was not without its obstacles; Bonaparte had had a quarrel,
lasting over a year, with the man who aspired to the honor of
becoming his brother-in-law. The cause of this quarrel will seem
rather strange to our readers.
Murat, the lion of the army; Murat, whose courage had become
proverbial; Murat, who might well have been taken by a sculptor
as a model for the god of war; Murat, on one occasion, when he
must have slept ill or breakfasted badly, had a moment of weakness.
It happened before Mantua, in which city Wurmser, after the battle
of Rivoli, was forced to shut himself up with twenty-eight thousand
men; General Miollis, with four thousand only, was investing
the place. During a sortie attempted by the Austrians, Murat,
at the head of five hundred men, received an order to charge
three thousand. Murat charged, but feebly. Bonaparte, whose
aide-de-camp he then was, was so irritated that he would not
suffer him to remain about him. This was a great blow to Murat,
all the more because he was at that time desirous of becoming
the general's brother-in-law; he was deeply in love with Caroline
Bonaparte.
How had that love come about? It can be told in two words. Perhaps
those who read our books singly are surprised that we sometimes
dwell on certain details which seem somewhat long drawn out for
the book in which they appear. The fact is, we are not writing
isolated books, but, as we have already said, we are filling,
or trying to fill, an immense frame. To us, the presence of our
characters is not limited to their appearance in one book. The
man you meet in one book may be a king in a second volume, and
exiled or shot in a third.
Balzac did a great and noble work with a hundred aspects, and
he called it the "Comédie Humaine." Our work, begun at the same
time as his--although, be it understood, we do not praise it--may
fitly be called "The Drama of France."
Now, let us return to Murat, and tell how this love, which had
so glorious and, possibly, so fatal an influence on his destiny,
came to him.
In 1796, Murat was sent to Paris, charged with the duty of presenting
to the Directory the flags and banners taken by the French army at
the battles of Dego and Mondovi. During this voyage he made the
acquaintance of Madame Bonaparte and Madame Tallien. At Madame
Bonaparte's house he again met Mademoiselle Caroline Bonaparte.
We say _again_, for that was not the first time he had met
the woman who was to share the crown of Naples with him. They
had met in Rome, at her brother's house, and, in spite of the
rivalry of a young and handsome Roman prince, she had shown him
a marked preference.
The three women combined to obtain for him the rank of general of
brigade from the Directory. Murat returned to the Army of Italy,
more in love than ever, and, in spite of his new rank, he solicited
and obtained the favor of remaining with the general-in-chief
as aide-de-camp. Unhappily, the fatal sortie took place soon
after, in consequence of which he fell in disgrace with Bonaparte.
This disgrace had for awhile all the characteristics of actual
enmity. Bonaparte dismissed him from his service as aide-de-camp,
and transferred him to Neille's division, and then to that of
Baraguey-d'Hilliers. The result was, that when Bonaparte returned
to Paris after the treaty of Tolentino, Murat did not accompany
him.
This did not at all suit the female triumvirate, who had taken
the young general under its direction. The beautiful intriguers
entered into the campaign, and as the expedition to Egypt was
then preparing, they induced the minister of war to send Murat
with it. He embarked in the same ship as Bonaparte, namely the
"Orient," but the latter did not address a single word to him
during the voyage. After they reached Alexandria, Murat was at
first unable to break the icy barrier opposed to him by the general,
who, more to put him at a distance from his own person than to
give him an opportunity to distinguish himself, confronted him
with Mourad Bey. But, during that campaign, Murat performed such
prodigies of valor that he effaced, by such bravery, the memory
of that momentary weakness; he charged so intrepidly, so madly
at Aboukir, that Bonaparte had not the heart to bear him further
malice.
Consequently Murat had returned to France with Bonaparte. He
had powerfully co-operated with him on the 18th and especially
on the 19th Brumaire. He was, therefore, restored to full favor,
and, as a proof of that favor, had received the command of the
Consular guard.
He thought this the moment to declare his love, a love already
well-known to Josephine, who favored it; for which she had two
reasons. In the first place, she was a woman in the most charming
acceptation of the word; that is to say, all the gentler passions
of women were attractive to her. Joachim loved Caroline, Caroline
loved Joachim; that was enough to make her wish to protect their
love. In the second place, Bonaparte's brothers detested Josephine;
Joseph and Lucien were her bitterest enemies, and she was not
sorry to make herself two ardent friends in Caroline and Murat.
She therefore encouraged the latter to approach Bonaparte on
the subject.
Three days before the ceremony we have just described, Murat
had entered Bonaparte's study, and, after endless hesitation and
circumlocution, had proffered his request.
It is probable that the love of the young pair was no news to
Bonaparte, who, however, received it with stern gravity, and
contented himself with replying that he would think it over.
The matter, in fact, required thinking over. Bonaparte came of
a noble family, Murat was the son of an innkeeper. The alliance
at such a moment might have great significance. Was the First
Consul, in spite of his noble birth, in spite of the exalted
rank to which he had raised himself, not only sufficiently
republican, but also sufficiently democratic to mingle his blood
with that of the common people.
He did not reflect long; his strong, good sense, and his logical
mind, told him that he had every interest in allowing the marriage,
and he gave his consent to it the same day.
The double news of this marriage and of the removal to the Tuileries
was launched on the public at the same time; the one was to
counterpoise the other. The First Consul was about to occupy the
palace of the former kings, to sleep in the bed of the Bourbons,
as they said at that time, but he gave his sister to the son of
an innkeeper!
And now, it may be asked, what dowry did the future Queen of
Naples bring to the hero of Aboukir? Thirty thousand francs and
a diamond necklace, which the First Consul took from his wife,
being too poor to buy one. Josephine, who was very fond of her
necklace, pouted a little; but the gift, thus obtained, was a
triumphant reply to those who claimed that Bonaparte had made
a fortune in Italy; besides, why had she taken the interests
of the young couple so to heart? She had insisted on marrying
them, and she ought to contribute to the dowry.
The result of this clever combination was that on the day when
the Consuls left the Luxembourg for the "palace of the government,"
escorted by the _son of an innkeeper_, soon to be Bonaparte's
brother-in-law, it did not occur to those who saw the procession
pass to do otherwise than admire and applaud. And, in truth,
what could be more admirable and worthy of applause than those
processions, which had at their head such men as Murat, Moreau,
Junot, Duroc, Augereau, and Masséna?
A grand review had been ordered to take place that same day in the
square of the Carrousel. Madame Bonaparte was to be present--not,
to be sure, in the balcony of the clock-tower, that being evidently
too royal, but at the window of Lebrun's apartment in the Pavilion
of Flora.
Bonaparte started at one o'clock precisely from the Luxembourg,
escorted by three thousand picked men, among them the splendid
regiment of the Guides, created three years earlier as a bodyguard
to Bonaparte during the Italian campaign, in consequence of a
great danger he had escaped on one occasion. He was resting in
a small château, after the exhaustion attendant upon the passage
of the Mincio, and was preparing to take a bath, when a retreating
Austrian detachment, losing its way, invaded the château, which
had no other guard than the sentries. Bonaparte had barely time
to escape in his shirt.
A curious difficulty, which deserves to be recorded, arose on the
morning of this removal, which took place the 30th Pluviose, year
VIII. The generals, of course, had their horses and the ministers
their carriages, but the other functionaries had not yet judged
it expedient to go to such an expense. Carriages were therefore
lacking. They were supplied from the hackney coach-stands, and
slips of paper of the same color as the carriages were pasted
over their numbers.
The carriage of the First Consul alone was harnessed with six
white horses, but as the three consuls were in the same carriage,
Bonaparte and Cambacérès on the front seat, and Lebrun on the
back, it was, after all, but two horses apiece. Besides, were
not these six white horses given to the commander-in-chief by
the Emperor Francis himself, after the treaty of Campo-Formio,
a trophy in themselves?
The carriage crossed a part of Paris, following the Rue de
Thionville, the Quai Voltaire, and the Pont-Royal. From the archway
of the Carrousel to the great portal of the Tuileries the Consular
guard lined the way. As Bonaparte passed through the archway, he
raised his head and read the inscription it bore. That inscription
was as follows:
AUGUST 10, 1792.
ROYALTY IS ABOLISHED IN FRANCE
AND SHALL NEVER RISE AGAIN.
An almost imperceptible smile flickered on the First Consul's
lips.
At the door of the Tuileries, Bonaparte left the carriage and
sprang into the saddle to review the troops. When he appeared
on his war-horse the applause burst forth wildly on all sides.
After the review was over, he placed himself in front of the
clock-tower, with Murat on his right, Lannes at his left, and
the glorious staff of the Army of Italy behind him. Then began
the march past.
And now it was that one of those inspirations came to him which
engrave themselves forever on the hearts of soldiers. As the
flags of the 30th, the 96th, and the 33d demi-brigades were borne
past him, and he saw that, of those banners, there remained but
a stick and a few rags, riddled with balls and blackened with
powder, he took his hat from his head and bowed.
Then, when the march was over, he dismounted from his horse,
and, with a firm step, he walked up the grand stairway of the
Valois and the Bourbons.
That night, when he was alone with Bourrienne, the latter asked:
"Well, general, are you satisfied?"
"Yes," replied Bonaparte, dreamily, "everything went off nicely,
didn't it?"
"Wonderfully well."
"I saw you standing near Madame Bonaparte at the ground-floor
window of the Pavilion of Flora."
"I saw you, too, general; you were reading the inscription on
the arch of the Carrousel."
"Yes," said Bonaparte, "'August 10,1792. Royalty is abolished
in France, and shall never rise again.'"
"Shall I have it removed?" asked Bourrienne.
"Useless," replied the First Consul, "it will fall of itself."
Then, with a sigh, he added: "Bourrienne, do you know whom I
missed to-day?"
"No, general."
"Roland. What the devil is he doing that he doesn't give me any
news of himself?"
We are about to see what Roland was doing.
