The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Ida Minerva Tarbell

be that in Europe a kingdom awaited him? He decided to leave Egypt at once, and with the greatest secrecy prepared for his departure. The army was turned over to Kléber, and with four small vessels he sailed for France on the night of August 22, 1799. On October 16th he was in Paris.

      For a long time nothing had been heard of Napoleon in France. The people said he had been exiled by the jealous Directory. His disappearance into the Orient had all the mystery and fascination of an Eastern tale. His sudden reappearance had something of the heroic in it. He came like a god from Olympus, unheralded, but at the critical moment.

      The joy of the people, who at that day certainly preferred a hero to suffrage, was spontaneous and sincere. His journey from the coast to Paris was a triumphal march. Le retour du héros was the word in everybody’s mouth. On every side the people cried: “You alone can save the country. It is perishing without you. Take the reins of government.”

      At Paris he found the government waiting to be overthrown. “A brain and a sword” was all that was needed to carry out a coup d’état organized while he was still in Africa. Everybody recognized him as the man for the hour. A large part of the military force in Paris was devoted to him. His two brothers, Lucien and Joseph, were in positions of influence, the former president of the Five Hundred, as one of the two chambers was called. All that was most distinguished in the political, military, legal, and artistic circles of Paris rallied to him. Among the men who supported him were Talleyrand, Sieyès, Chénier, Roederer, Monge, Cambacérès, Moreau, Berthier, Murat.

      On the 18th Brumaire (the 9th of November), 1799, the plot culminated, and Napoleon was recognized as the temporary Dictator of France.

      The private sorrow to which Napoleon returned, was as great as the public glory. During the campaign in Egypt he had learned beyond a doubt that Josephine’s coquetry had become open folly, and that a young officer, Hippolyte Charles, whom he had dismissed from the Army of Italy two years before, was installed at Malmaison. The liaison was so scandalous that Gohier, the president of the Directory, advised Josephine to get a divorce from Napoleon and marry Charles.

      These rumors reached Egypt, and Napoleon, in despair, even talked them over with Eugène de Beauharnais. The boy defended his mother, and for a time succeeded in quieting Napoleon’s resentment. At last, however, he learned in a talk with Junot that the gossip was true. He lost all control of himself, and declared he would have a divorce. The idea was abandoned, but the love and reverence he had given Josephine were dead. From that time she had no empire over his heart, no power to inspire him to action or to enthusiasm.

      When he landed in France from Egypt, Josephine, foreseeing a storm, started out to meet him at Lyons. Unfortunately she took one road and Napoleon another, and when he reached Paris at six o’clock in the morning he found no one at home. When Josephine arrived Napoleon refused to see her, and it was three days before he relented. Then his forgiveness was due to the intercession of Hortense and Eugène, to both of whom he was warmly attached.

      But if he consented to pardon, he could never give again the passionate affection which he once had felt for her. He ceased to be a lover, and became a commonplace, tolerant, indulgent, bourgeois husband, upon whom his wife, in matters of importance, had no influence. Josephine was hereafter the suppliant, but she never regained the noble kingdom she had despised.

      Napoleon’s domestic sorrow weakened in no way his activity and vigor in public affairs. He realized that, if he would keep his place in the hearts and confidence of the people, he must do something to show his strength, and peace was the gift he proposed to make to the nation. When he returned he found a civil war raging in La Vendée. Before February he had ended it. All over France brigandage had made life and property uncertain. It was stopped by his new régime.

      Two foreign enemies only remained at war with France—Austria and England. He offered them peace. It was refused. Nothing remained but to compel it. The Austrians were first engaged. They had two armies in the field; one on the Rhine, against which Moreau was sent, the other in Italy—now lost to France—besieging the French shut up in Genoa.

      “INSTALLATION OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE AT THE PALACE OF THE PETIT LUXEMBOURG, DECEMBER 29, 1799.”

      Moreau conducted the campaign in the Rhine countries with skill, fighting two successful battles, and driving his opponent from Ulm.

      Napoleon decided that he would himself carry on the Italian campaign, but of that he said nothing in Paris. His army was quietly brought together as a reserve force; then suddenly, on May 6, 1800, he left Paris for Geneva. Immediately his plan became evident. It was nothing else than to cross the Alps and fall upon the rear of the Austrians, then besieging Genoa.

      Such an undertaking was a veritable coup de théâtre. Its accomplishment was not less brilliant than its conception. Three principal passes lead from Switzerland into Italy: Mont Cenis, the Great Saint Bernard, and the Mount Saint Gothard. The last was already held by the Austrians. The first is the westernmost, and here Napoleon directed the attention of General Melas, the Austrian commander. The central, or Mount Saint Bernard, Pass was left almost defenceless, and here the French army was led across, a passage surrounded by enormous difficulties, particularly for the artillery, which had to be taken to pieces and carried or dragged by the men.

      Save the delay which the enemy caused the French at Fort Bard, where five hundred men stopped the entire army, Napoleon met with no serious resistance in entering Italy. Indeed, the Austrians treated the force with contempt, declaring that it was not the First Consul who led it, but an adventurer, and that the army was not made up of French, but of refugee Italians.

      This rumor was soon known to be false. On June 2d Napoleon entered Milan. It was evident that a conflict was imminent, and to prepare his soldiers Bonaparte addressed them:

      “Soldiers, one of our departments was in the power of the enemy; consternation was in the south of France; the greatest part of the Ligurian territory, the most faithful friends of the Republic, had been invaded. The Cisalpine Republic had again become the grotesque plaything of the feudal régime. Soldiers, you march—and already the French territory is delivered! Joy and hope have succeeded in your country to consternation and fear.

      “You give back liberty and independence to the people of Genoa. You have delivered them from their eternal enemies. You are in the capital of the Cisalpine. The enemy, terrified, no longer hopes for anything, except to regain its frontiers. You have taken possession of its hospitals, its magazines, its resources.

      “The first act of the campaign is terminated. Every day you hear millions of men thanking you for your deeds.

      “But shall it be said that French territory has been violated with impunity? Shall we allow an army which has carried fear into our families to return to its firesides? Will you run with your arms? Very well, march to the battle; forbid their retreat; tear from them the laurels of which they have taken possession; and so teach the world that the curse of destiny is on the rash who dare insult the territory of the Great People. The result of all our efforts will be spotless glory, solid peace.”

      Melas, the Austrian commander, had lost much time; but finally convinced that it was really Bonaparte who had invaded Italy, and that he had actually reached Milan, he advanced into the plain of Marengo. He had with him an army of from fifty to sixty thousand men well supplied with artillery.

      Bonaparte, ignorant that so large a force was at Marengo, advanced into the plain with only a portion of his army. On June 14th Melas attacked him. Before noon the French saw that they had to do with the entire Austrian army. For hours the battle was waged furiously, but with constant loss on the side of the French. In spite of the most intrepid fighting the army gave way. “At four o’clock in the afternoon,” says a soldier who was present, “there remained in a radius of two leagues not over six thousand infantry, a thousand horse, and six pieces of cannon. A third of our army was not in condition for battle. The lack of carriages to transport the sick made another third necessary for this painful task. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, had forced a great number to withdraw. The sharp shooters for the most