LITMIR.BIZ

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mistake when he says that Bonaparte's

       connection with Robespierre was attended with fatal consequences to

       him, and that his justification consisted in acknowledging that his

       friends were very different from what he had supposed them to be.

      —Bourrienne.]—

      It has, moreover, been said that Albitte and Salicetti explained to the Committee of Public Safety the impossibility of their resuming the military operations unaided by the talents of General Bonaparte. This is mere flattery. The facts are these:

      On the 13th of July 1794 (25th Messidor, year II), the representatives of the people with the army of Italy ordered that General Bonaparte should proceed to Genoa, there, conjointly with the French 'charge d'affaires', to confer on certain subjects with the Genoese Government. This mission, together with a list of secret instructions, directing him to examine the fortresses of Genoa and the neighbouring country, show the confidence which Bonaparte, who was then only twenty-five, inspired in men who were deeply interested in making a prudent choice of their agents.

      Bonaparte set off for Genoa, and fulfilled his mission. The 9th Thermidor arrived, and the deputies, called Terrorists, were superseded by Albitte and Salicetti. In the disorder which then prevailed they were either ignorant of the orders given to General Bonaparte, or persons envious of the rising glory of the young general of artillery inspired Albitte and Salicetti with suspicions prejudicial to him. Be this as it may, the two representatives drew up a resolution, ordering that General Bonaparte should be arrested, suspended from his rank, and arraigned before the Committee of Public Safety; and, extraordinary as it may appear, this resolution was founded in that very journey to Genoa which Bonaparte executed by the direction of the representatives of the people.

      —[Madame Junot throws some light on this Persecution of Bonaparte

       by Salicetti. "One motive (I do not mean to say the only one),"

       remarks this lady, "of the animosity shown by Salicetti to

       Bonaparte, in the affair of Loano, was that they were at one time

       suitors to the same lady. I am not sure whether it was in Corsica

       or in Paris, but I know for a fact that Bonaparte, in spite of his

       youth, or perhaps I should rather say on account of his youth, was

       the favoured lover. It was the opinion of my brother, who was

       secretary to Salicetti, that Bonaparte owed his life to a

       circumstance which is not very well known. The fact is, that

       Salicetti received a letter from Bonaparte, the contents of which

       appeared to make a deep impression on him. Bonaparte's papers had

       been delivered into Salicetti's hands, who, after an attentive

       perusal of them, laid them aside with evident dissatisfaction. He

       then took them up again, and read them a second time. Salicetti

       declined my brother's assistance is the examination of the papers,

       and after a second examination, which was probably as unsatisfactory

       as the first, he seated himself with a very abstracted air. It

       would appear that he had seen among the papers some document which

       concerned himself. Another curious fact is, that the man who had

       the care of the papers after they were sealed up was an inferior

       clerk entirely under the control of Salicetti; and my brother, whose

       business it was to have charge of the papers, was directed not to

       touch them. He has often spoken to me of this circumstance, and I

       mention it here as one of importance to the history of the time.

       Nothing that relates to a man like Napoleon can be considered

       useless or trivial.

       "What, after all, was the result of this strange business which

       might have cost Bonaparte his head?—for, had he been taken to Paris

       and tried by the Committee of Public Safety, there is little doubt

       that the friend of Robespierre the younger would have been condemned

       by Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois. The result was the

       acquittal of the accused. This result is the more extraordinary,

       since it would appear that at that time Salicetti stood in fear of

       the young general. A compliment is even paid to Bonaparte in the

       decree, by which he was provisionally restored to liberty. That

       liberation was said to be granted on the consideration that General

       Bonaparte might be useful to the Republic. This was foresight; but

       subsequently when measures were taken which rendered Bonaparte no

       longer an object of fear, his name was erased from the list of

       general officers, and it is a curious fact that Cambacérès, who was

       destined to be his colleague in the Consulate, was one of the

       persons who signed the act of erasure" (Memoirs of the Duchesse

       d'Abrantes, vol. i, p. 69, edit. 1843).]—

      Bonaparte said at St. Helena that he was a short time imprisoned by order of the representative Laporte; but the order for his arrest was signed by Albitte, Salicetti, and Laporte.

      —[Albitte and Laporte were the representatives sent from the

       Convention to the army of the Alps, and Salicetti to the army of

       Italy.]—

      Laporte was not probably the most influential of the three, for Bonaparte did not address his remonstrance to him. He was a fortnight under arrest.

      Had the circumstance occurred three weeks earlier, and had Bonaparte been arraigned before the Committee of Public Safety previous to the 9th Thermidor, there is every probability that his career would have been at an end; and we should have seen perish on the scaffold, at the age of twenty-five, the man who, during the twenty-five succeeding years, was destined to astonish the world by his vast conceptions, his gigantic projects, his great military genius, his extraordinary good fortune, his faults, reverses, and final misfortunes.

      It is worth while to remark that in the post-Thermidorian resolution just alluded to no mention is made of Bonaparte's association with Robespierre the younger. The severity with which he was treated is the more astonishing, since his mission to Genoa was the alleged cause of it. Was there any other charge against him, or had calumny triumphed over the services he had rendered to his country? I have frequently conversed with him on the subject of this adventure, and he invariably assured me that he had nothing to reproach himself with, and that his defence, which I shall subjoin, contained the pure expression of his sentiments, and the exact truth.

      In the following note, which he addressed to Albitte and Salicetti, he makes no mention of Laporte. The copy which I possess is in the handwriting of, Junot, with corrections in the General's hand. It exhibits all the characteristics of Napoleon's writing: his short sentences, his abrupt rather than concise style, sometimes his elevated ideas, and always his plain good sense.

       TO THE REPRESENTATIVES ALBITTE AND SALICETTI:

      You have suspended me from my duties, put me under arrest, and declared me to be suspected.

      Thus I am disgraced before being judged, or indeed judged before being heard.

      In a revolutionary state there are two classes, the suspected and the patriots.

      When the first are aroused, general measures are adopted towards them for the sake of security.

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