LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

which was seldom good, with or without fever, Napoleon then described his great-uncle’s symptoms, explained that he had practically never been ill before, and even added his own diagnosis: ‘I believe that he has a tendency to egoism and that being comfortably off he has not been obliged to develop all his energies.’ Respectfully, but with assurance, he asked Dr Tissot to prescribe by return of post. As it happened, Tissot had already given a remedy for gout in the first of his ‘treat yourself’ books: bathing the legs, a largely milk diet, no sweets, no oil, no ragouts, no wine. Perhaps he felt that he had nothing further to say, for he wrote on the back of Napoleon’s request: ‘A letter of little interest; no reply sent.’

      Olive oil, of course, is a staple of Corsican diet. For that reason or another Archdeacon Lucciano grew steadily worse, and in late autumn 1791 the end was plainly near. His family gathered round the old man’s bed, with the crucifix hanging above and the mattress of gold, while the Archdeacon addressed a last word to the older boys. ‘You, Joseph, will be head of the family, and you, Napoleon, will be a man.’ The Archdeacon meant that he had discerned in the second son those virtues of energy, courage and independence which to a Corsican comprised true manhood.

      With the Archdeacon’s death his property passed to Letizia’s sons. Overnight the Buonapartes found themselves no longer poor, but quite well-off. This was a stroke of luck for Napoleon, because he wanted to play a part in Corsican politics, a rough world where one did not get far without the influence which comes from money.

      Corsica was sharply divided between those who welcomed the Constitution of 1791, and those who opposed the new measures from Paris, particularly measures against the Church. Napoleon belonged to the first group, and furthermore believed that only a strong National Guard, or citizens’ army, could implement the Constitution and bring its benefits to the Corsican people. He campaigned for a National Guard, and when it was formed, wrote to the War Office, explaining that his ‘post of honour’ now lay in Corsica, and asking permission, which was granted, to stand for election to one of two places as lieutenant-colonel in the second battalion.

      There were four candidates and each Guard had two votes. A fortnight before the election Napoleon arranged for 200 Guards to come to Ajaccio and lodge in the Casa Buonaparte and its grounds. There Letizia gave them plenty of good things to eat and drink – paying with the Archdeacon’s gold.

      On election eve the commissioners arrived. Everyone watched to see where they would lodge, for it was thus that they indicated their preferences. One of them, Morati, went to the house of a family backing Napoleon’s chief rival, Pozzo. Napoleon did not relish Morati lodging there, and perhaps being intimidated. He called one of his men and ordered him to kidnap Morati. That evening, when the Peraldi were seated at dinner, intruders burst into the dining-room, seized Morati and brought him to Napoleon’s house. There the astonished commissioner had to spend the night.

      Next day the 521 Guards trooped into the church of San Francesco. Pozzo made a speech protesting against the kidnapping. But the Guards hissed, and with shouts of ‘Abasso’ pulled Pozzo off the platform; some whipped out stilettos. Just in time Napoleon and a friend intervened and made a rampart round Pozzo. Then quiet was restored and voting began. Napoleon came second with 422 votes. By Corsican standards it had been a surprisingly calm election – no one killed.

      Napoleon was now, at twenty-two, a lieutenant-colonel in the National Guard. But he found himself in a troubled situation. Paris had decreed the suppression of all religious houses. In Corsica there were sixty-five friaries, the one in Ajaccio being particularly important. In March it had been closed. Naturally the Franciscans protested and, being well-liked, managed to rouse support.

      A week after Napoleon’s election, on Easter Sunday 1792, a group of non-juring priests – those who refused to swear loyalty to the Constitution – entered the closed-down friary and celebrated Mass. Napoleon decided the priests were defying the Government and alerted his Guards. After the Mass a game of skittles began; a dispute arose, which soon became a battle between supporters of the friars and supporters of the Constitutional clergy, between the old order and the new. Stilettos flashed, pistols blazed. Napoleon ordered his Guards to restore quiet. Suddenly, near the cathedral, one of the friars’ supporters pulled out a pistol and Lieutenant Rocca della Sera of the National Guard fell dead. Napoleon rushed up, carried the body back to his headquarters in the tower of the seminary, and decided to fight it out with the friars’ supporters.

      The key to Ajaccio was its citadel, a powerful fortress with sheer walls and big guns. Whoever held the citadel held Ajaccio. But Colonel Maillard, the commander there, showed no disposition to help Napoleon. Instead, he sent French troops to clear the town. Napoleon, in the seminary, declined to be cleared and at times, in the narrow streets, French troops and Napoleon’s men were blazing away at each other.

      Napoleon went to see Maillard. His men were exhausted, and he asked if they might rest in the citadel. Maillard refused. Then give us some ammunition, said Napoleon, we’re running short. Again Maillard said no. Napoleon considered these replies an act of defiance of the people’s army, and the citadel, with its guns trained on the town, another Bastille. Quitting Maillard abruptly, he went round Ajaccio calling for volunteers to storm the citadel. But no one would listen: they were concerned with the friary, not the fortress. Finally Napoleon led his Guards, short of ammunition and exhausted by a day and two nights of fighting, against the citadel, and the attack failed.

      On Easter Wednesday Pietri and Arrighi, the Corsican civilians responsible for the National Guard, arrived in Ajaccio. ‘This is a conspiracy hatched and fomented by religion,’ Napoleon told them. He was right, but failed to add that the mass of Corsicans clung to their traditional religious ways. Pietri and Arrighi calmed down the Ajaccians, put thirty-four in prison, and sent Napoleon’s battalion to Corte, three days’ march away.

      This was a blow to Napoleon. It left Ajaccio in the hands of Colonel Maillard, it isolated him from his family, his friends and his chosen political arena; it seemed also to condone, as he put it, ‘the Ajaccians’ resistance to a law passed by the freely elected Assembly’. Still more unfortunate was the fact that Maillard sent an angry report to Lejard, the Minister of War, blaming Napoleon, a French officer, for taking arms against a French garrison. Napoleon, he said, should be court-martialled.

      ‘It seems urgent that you go to France,’ Joseph told Napoleon in considerable alarm, and Napoleon thought so too. At all costs he must clear himself of Maillard’s charges. He said goodbye to his family, caught the boat from Bastia and on 28 May arrived in Paris

      The Revolution had now entered a new phase. It had become an international conflict: the kings and aristocracy of Europe against the people of France. The Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia had declared war on the French people, had invaded French soil and had promised to restore the old régime. The deeper they advanced, the more nervous and edgy Parisians became. They suspected Louis XVI of conniving with his fellow kings; they suspected their Austrian-born queen. Their fears might have been quelled by Mirabeau, but Mirabeau had died the year before, and now there was no one to calm the frightened, angry crowds who marched and protested and looted.

      Napoleon spent his days visiting the War Office, listening to debates in the Assembly, looking up friends and studying the mood of the people. He ran short of money and had to pawn his watch. On 20 June he was lunching near the Palais Royal with Antoine de Bourrienne, an old friend from the Ecole Militaire who had forsaken the army for law. Suddenly they saw a crowd of ragged men arrive from the direction of the food markets, evidently heading for the Assembly building. They numbered between five and six thousand, and were armed with pikes, axes, swords, muskets and pointed sticks. Some wore red bonnets, and were therefore Jacobins of the extreme Left. They were shouting abuse at Brissot’s moderate Government. ‘Let’s follow this rabble,’ said Napoleon.

      The rabble reached the Assembly building, where Napoleon watched them demand admission. For an hour, singing the revolutionary song ‘Ça ira’, and waving a plank to which was nailed a bloody ox-heart with the inscription, ‘Cœur de Louis XVI’, they filed through the hall. Then they marched to the Tuileries Palace, chanting coarse slogans, and climbed the wide seventeenth-century staircase to the royal apartments. There looked like being bloodshed. But the

Скачать книгу