1793-1796
Greatness now began to dawn for Napoleon. Practically penniless, in a great and heartless city, even the lower classes began to perceive that here was one before whom there lay a brilliant future.
Restaurateurs, laundresses, confectioners--all trusted him. An instance of the regard people were beginning to have for him is shown in the pathetic interview between Napoleon and Madame Sans Gene, his laundress.
"Here is your wash, lieutenant," said she, after climbing five flights of stairs, basket in hand, to the miserable lodging of the future Emperor.
Napoleon looked up from his books and counted the clothes.
"There is one sock missing," said he, sternly.
"No," returned Sans Gene. "Half of each sock was washed away, and Isewed the remaining halves into one. One good sock is better than two bad ones. If you ever lose a leg in battle you may find the odd one handy.""How can I ever repay you?" cried Napoleon, touched by her friendly act.
"I'm sure I don't know," returned Madame Sans Gene, demurely, "unless you will escort me to the Charity Ball--I'll buy the tickets.""And, pray, what good will that do?" asked Bonaparte.
"It will make Lefebvre jealous," said Madame Sans Gene, "and maybe that will bring him to the point. I want to marry him, but, encourage him as I will, he does not propose, and as in revising the calendar the government has abolished leap-year, I really don't know what to do.""I cannot go to the ball," said Napoleon, sadly. "I don't dance, and, besides, I have loaned my dress-suit to Bourrienne. But I will flirt with you on the street if you wish, and perhaps that will suffice."It is hardly necessary to tell the reader that the ruse was successful, and that Lefebvre, thus brought to the point, married Madame Sans Gene, and subsequently, through his own advancement, made her the Duchess of Dantzig. The anecdote suffices to show how wretchedly poor and yet how full of interest and useful to those about him Napoleon was at the time.
In February, 1793, a change for the better in his fortunes occurred.
Bonaparte, in cooperation with Admiral Turget, was ordered to make a descent upon Sardinia. What immediately followed can best be told in Bonaparte's own words. "My descent was all right," he said afterwards, "and I had the Sardines all ready to put in boxes, when Turget had a fit of sea-sickness, lost his bearings, and left me in the lurch. There was nothing left for me but to go back to Corsica and take it out of Joseph, which I did, much to Joseph's unhappiness.
It was well for the family that I did so, for hardly had I arrived at Ajaccio when I found my old friend Paoli wrapping Corsica up in a brown-paper bundle to send to the King of England with his compliments. This I resisted, with the result that our whole family was banished, and those fools of Corsicans broke into our house and smashed all of our furniture. They little knew that that furniture, if in existence to-day, would bring millions of francs as curios if sold at auction. It was thus that the family came to move to France and that I became in fact what I had been by birth--a Frenchman. If I had remained a Corsican, Paoli's treachery would have made me an Englishman, to which I should never have become reconciled, although had I been an Englishman I should have taken more real pleasure out of the battle of Waterloo than I got.
"After this I was ordered to Toulon. The French forces here were commanded by General Cartaux, who had learned the science of war painting portraits in Paris. He ought to have been called General Cartoon. He besieged Toulon in a most impressionistic fashion. He'd bombard and bombard and bombard, and then leave the public to guess at the result. It's all well enough to be an impressionist in painting, but when it comes to war the public want more decided effects. When I got there, as a brigadier-general, I saw that Cartaux was wasting his time and ammunition. His idea seemed to be that by firing cannon all day he could so deafen the enemy that at night the French army could sneak into Toulon unheard and capture the city, which was, to say the least, unscientific. I saw at once that Cartaux must go, and I soon managed to make life so unbearable for him that he resigned, and a man named Doppet, a physician, was placed in command. Doppet was worse than Cartaux. Whenever anybody got hurt he'd stop the war and prescribe for the injured man. If he could have prescribed for the enemy they'd have died in greater numbers I have no doubt, but, like the idiot he was, he practised on his own forces. Besides, he was more interested in surgery than in capturing Toulon. He always gave the ambulance corps the right of line, and I believe to this day that his plan of routing the English involved a sudden rush upon them, taking them by surprise, and the subsequent amputation of their legs. The worst feature of the situation, as I found it, was that these two men, falling back upon their rights as my superior officers, refused to take orders from me.
I called their attention to the fact that rank had been abolished, and that in France one man was now as good as another; but they were stubborn, so I wrote to Paris and had them removed. Then came Dugommier, who backed me up in my plans, and Toulon as a consequence immediately fell with a dull, sickening thud."It was during this siege that Bonaparte first encountered Junot.
Having occasion to write a note while under fire from the enemy's batteries, Napoleon called for a stenographer. Junot came to him.
"Do you know shorthand?" asked the general, as a bomb exploded at his feet.
"Slightly," said Junot, calmly.
"Take this message," returned the general, coolly, dictating.
Junot took down Bonaparte's words, but just as he finished another bomb exploded near by, scattering dust and earth and sand all over the paper.