CHAPTER VII

My father at Villers-Cotterets--He is called to Paris to carry out the 13th Vendémiaire--Bonaparte takes his place--He arrives the next day--_Buonaparte's_ attestation--My father is sent into the district of Bouillon--He goes to the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse and to the Army of the Rhine, and is appointed Commandant at Landau--He returns as Divisional General in the Army of the Alps, of which he had been Commander-in-Chief--English blood and honour--Bonaparte's plan--Bonaparte appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Italy--The campaign of 1796.

Such are the events which took place in the period which elapsed between my father's marriage and his return to Villers-Cotterets, after his resignation as commander-in-chief of the Army of the coast near Brest.

He was very happy, very comfortable, and hoped to be left in peaceful oblivion by the side of his young wife, when, on the morning of the 14th Vendémiaire, he received this letter:--

"PARIS, _13 Vendémiaire of the Year IV of the French Republic, one and indivisible._

"The Representatives of the People in charge of the Army of Paris and of the Army of the Interior

"Order General Dumas to present himself at once at Paris to receive instructions from the Government.

"J. J. B. DELMAS,

"LAPORTE."

What, then, had happened in Paris?

We must explain.

The 13th Vendémiaire had taken place. Bonaparte had fired grapeshot on the rebels on the steps of the church of Saint-Roch.

The Convention had settled on my father to defend it, my father was not in Paris. Barras proposed Bonaparte, and Bonaparte was accepted.

That momentous hour that comes, so people say, once at least in the life of every man, and decides his future, had struck inauspiciously for him.

My father accepted the position instantly, but he did not arrive till the 14th. He found the rebels conquered, and Bonaparte general of the Army of the Interior.

This is the certificate that was given my father; we have copied this precious document from the original.

"LIBERTY--JUSTICE--EQUALITY.

"We, general officers and others, certify and attest that citizen Alexandre Dumas, general in the army, arrived in Paris on the 14th of Vendémiaire, and that he immediately joined his brothers-in-arms in defence of the National Convention against the attack of the rebels; who have this day laid down their arms.

"PARIS, _14th Brumaire, Year IV of the French Republic._

_"Signed_:

J. J. B. DELMAS; LAPORTE; GASTON; BERNARD, Aide-de-Camp; HUCHÉ, General of Division; TH. ARTEL, Captain Adjutant--General; BERTIN, Brigadier-General; PAREIN, General of Division; ROINAY, _Commissaire-Ordonnateur._

Then, at the bottom of all these signatures, in his illegible writing, every letter of which was like a Gordian knot, the man who was going to weld the Revolution by bloodshed wrote these three lines:--

"Certified correct.

"BUONAPARTE, Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Interior."

He dropped the _u_ which Italianised his name three months later, and then signed himself _Bonaparte._

It was doubtless during these three months that he had his Macbeth-like apparition, when the three witches addressed him, "Hail! thou shalt become commander-in-chief; Hail! thou shalt become First Consul; Hail! thou shalt become Emperor."

The Convention which Bonaparte saved, ended its three years' session on the 26th October (1792), by a decree of amnesty for all the Revolutionary misdemeanants who had not been concerned in theft or assassination.

Then, when it had delivered 8370 decrees, it dissolved or rather reorganised itself, to reappear under the triple form of Council of Elders, Council of Five Hundred, and the Directory.

The five directors were: La Reveillère-Lepaux, Letourneur de la Manche, Rewbell, Barras, and Carnot.

They were, every one of them, members of the Convention.

Each of them had voted for the death of the king.

These Revolutionist appointments caused a rising in the district of Bouillon. On the 23rd Brumaire, year IV, my father was again in active service, and was sent to repress this insurrection--an end he accomplished without the shedding of blood.

From Bouillon my father rejoined the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse and the Army of the Rhine. He was made commandant at Landau, on the 21st Nivôse, year IV, returned to Villers-Cotterets on furlough in the month of Ventôse, and finally, on the 7th Messidor, he returned to the Army of the Alps as general of division. This army, of which he had formerly been commander-in-chief, was intended to guard the frontier and to keep a watch on Piedmont, with which we were at peace.

My father at first wanted to decline the post. In times of war he was always ready, even to act a common soldier's part; but in times of peace he was not in his element.

"Nevertheless, accept it, General," Dermoncourt advised him. "You will be close to Italy. From Chambéry to Suze there is only Mont Cenis to cross."

"In that case," replied my father, "I had better take it."

And he went.

At this time, as we have said, war had ceased between us and Spain, Prussia, Tuscany, Piedmont, and Holland; we were only at war with our two eternal enemies, Austria and England.

On the 17th November 1795, the English, who were vainly expected at Quiberon, evacuated l'Ile Dieu. Sombreuil and twelve hundred French emigrants were condemned to military executions. The rattle of this fusillade echoed as far as London, where Pitt exclaimed: "At least no English blood has been spilled."

"No," retorted Sheridan, "but English honour oozed out at every pore."

We continued warfare with Austria in the north and south simultaneously. Masséna won the battle of Loano in the south, and Bernadotte gained one in the north, at Crutznach.

Nevertheless, nothing seemed to be gained by these victories. Using Barras as an intermediary, Napoleon submitted a gigantic plan to the Directory, which was carried.

The war of la Vendée was tending towards its conclusion, and Hoche had shot Stofflet and Charette. France, therefore, freed from her internal strife and completely settled within her own borders, was now able to concentrate all her energies upon Germany and Italy.

This was the plan laid before the Directory.

When la Vendée was quelled, the forces were immediately to assume the offensive. Our armies of the Rhine were to blockade and besiege Mayence, to subjugate the princes of the empire one after another, to transfer the theatre of war into the Hereditary States, and to establish themselves in the noble valleys of the Mein and Necker.

From this time forward the armies would not cost France anything, the war would defray the expenses of the war.

As for Italy, a great victory was needed to force the King of Piedmont to make peace, or to compel him to give up his kingdom. This end achieved, the kingdom of Piedmont wiped off the map of Italy and joined to France under the title of the department of the Po, they would cross the river, skirt Pavia, wrest Milan from Austria, then break through into Lombardy, and penetrate up to the very gates of Vienna by way of the Tyrol and Venice.

As in the case of Germany (and certainly as well able to do it as Germany), Italy would feed our armies.

In consequence of this scheme, and in order to put it into execution, Hoche was to unite under his command the three armies of the coasts of Cherbourg, the shores of Brest, and of the West, a hundred thousand men all told, to achieve the pacification of la Vendée.

Jourdan was to keep the command of the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse.

Moreau was to replace Pichegru on the Rhine.

And Bonaparte was appointed commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy.

On the 21st March 1796, Bonaparte left Paris, taking with him in his carriage two thousand louis. It was all he had been able to get together, and it included his own fortune, the contributions of his friends, and the subsidies of the Directory.

Alexander took seven times more when he set out to conquer the Indies.

It should be stated that each louis d'or, in the time of Bonaparte, was worth seven thousand two hundred francs in assignats.

Why did Bonaparte prefer the 25,000 naked and famished soldiers of the coastline of Genoa to those grand armies of the Rhine, to those 80,000 well-armed, well-equipped men who had been put under the orders of Jourdan and Moreau, whose command could have been his, had he wished it? Because Italy is Italy--the country of wonderful memories; he chose rather the Éridan and the Tiber to the Rhine and the Meuse, the Milanese country to the Palatinate; he preferred to be a Hannibal rather than a Turenne or the Marshal of Saxony.

When he reached Nice, he found an army minus food, minus clothing, minus shoes, striving with great difficulty to keep to its posts, facing 60,000 Austrian troops and the most famous generals of the empire.

The day after his arrival Bonaparte distributed the sum of four louis to each general, in respect of his entry upon the scene; then, pointing to the plains of Italy, he said to the soldiers, "Comrades, you starve among these rocks! Cast your eyes over those fertile plains which spread out below your feet; they belong to you, take them."

Hannibal had made a similar remark nineteen hundred years before to his Numidian troops, as they crouched like sphinxes on the highest pinnacles of the Alps and gazed with eager eyes down into Italy; and during those nineteen hundred years there had only risen two men--Cæsar and Charlemagne--worthy to be compared with these two.

Bonaparte, as we have stated, had nearly 60,000 men against him: 22,000 were stationed at Céva, on the other side of the mountains, under Colli; Beaulieu, he of the boy's courage beneath his white hairs, had advanced with 38,000 upon Genoa by the passes of Lombardy.

Bonaparte moved his army to Albenga, and on the 11th April he made a dash against Beaulieu, near Voltri.

From this concussion flashed the spark which before eleven days had elapsed set fire to Italy; the young commander-in-chief beat his enemy five times--at Montenotte, at Millesimo, at Dego, at Vico, and at Mondovi. In eleven days the Austrians were cut off from the Piedmontese, Provera was taken, the King of Sardinia was forced to sign an armistice in his own capital, to surrender the three fortresses of Coni, Tortona, and Alexandria, and Bonaparte issued the following proclamation to his soldiers:--

"Soldiers, in fifteen days you have won six victories, taken twenty-one flags, fifty-five pieces of cannon, several fortified places, and have conquered the richest half of Piedmont. You have taken 15,000 prisoners, killed or wounded more than 10,000 men; your courage would have overcome the sterile rocks, had we not deemed the sacrifice useless to the country; your services, to-day, equal those of the armies of the Rhine and of Holland. Deprived of everything, you have managed without anything; you have won battles without cannons, crossed rivers without bridges, made forced marches without shoes on your feet, bivouacked without your allowance of spirits, often without bread; the phalanxes of the Republic and the soldiers of Liberty alone were capable of suffering what you have suffered. All thanks are due to you, soldiers! The country owes a debt of gratitude to you for her prosperity. Conquerors of Toulon if you foreshadowed the immortal campaign of 1793, your actual victories predict still finer things to come. The two armies which recently had the effrontery to attack you, fled before you in terror; wicked men, who mocked at your misery and rejoiced in their hearts at the thought of your enemies triumphing over you, have been put to shame, and they tremble before you. But, soldiers, whilst there still remains something not yet accomplished, your duties are not at an end. Neither Turin nor Milan are ours. The ashes of the conquerors of Tarquin are still being scattered by the assassins of Basseville! I have heard it whispered that there are those among you whose courage is ebbing, who would rather return across the Apennines and Alps. But I cannot believe it--no, the conquerors of Montenotte, of Millesimo, of Dego, and of Mondovi are burning to carry the glory of the French people still farther afield."

Bonaparte next advanced to Northern Italy, and, predicting his future successes by those of the past, he wrote to the Directory:--

"To-morrow I march upon Beaulieu. I shall compel him to recross the Po, I shall cross it forthwith, I shall take possession of the whole of Lombardy, and before a month is past I hope to be on the mountains of the Tyrol, there to join forces with the Army of the Rhine, and in conjunction with it to carry the war into Bavaria."

Beaulieu was, in fact, overtaken. He returned in vain to try to oppose the passage of the Po; the Po was crossed; so he returned to shelter behind the walls of Lodi. A battle, lasting three hours, chased him from his position; and he formed a line of battle along the left bank, defending with all his artillery the bridge he had not had time to destroy. The French army, drawn up in serried columns, dashed at the bridge, scattering all before it, dispersed the Austrians, and went on its way over what was left of the enemy's army. Pavia was the next to submit, Pizzighitone and Cremona fell, the castle of Milan opened its gates, the King of Sardinia definitely accepted peace; the dukes of Parma and of Modena followed his example, and Beaulieu only just managed to shut himself up in Mantua.

It was at this moment that news of Wurmser's advance reached him: he came with 60,000 men, 30,000 taken from the Army of the Rhine, 30,000 drawn from the interior of Austria.

These 60,000 men advanced through the Tyrol.

Let us now examine the state of the French army and of its adversaries.

The French army had entered Italy with a strength of 30,000 to 32,000 men, of which they had lost 2000; nearly 9000 men had joined from the Army of the Alps, 4000 or 5000 had been added from the military centres of Provence and the Var. The army therefore numbered 44,000 to 45,000 men--disposed about the Adige or grouped round Mantua.

In addition to these, two divisions could be reckoned on, drawn from the Army of the West, now that la Vendée was pacified. But these two divisions had yet to journey across France.

The Austrian army comprised from 10,000 to 12,000 men, not including the sick and wounded shut up in Mantua; 12,000 or 15,000 men, the remnants of the various battles fought since the commencement of the campaign and dispersed through Northern Italy, and 60,000 men headed by Wurmser.

The fame of this 60,000 men was spread abroad, and rumour boldly doubled its numbers. This time, so rumour had it, Bonaparte was not only going to encounter an army four times stronger than his own, but a general who was a match for him. Hannibal was to meet his Scipio; people repeated the old proverb, _L'Italia fu e sarà sempre il sepolcro dei Francesi._

Italy had been, and always would be, the grave of the French.

That is what people said.

Wurmser then, as we have said, had 60,000 men; of these 60,000 men he had detached 20,000, whom he had given to Quasdanovitch, with orders to march by the road which runs along by the lake of Garda, by the tiny lake of Idra and, after crossing the Chiesa, comes out at Salo.

The remaining 40,000 he took with him, dividing them between the two roads which run by the Adige--one portion marched on Rivoli, the others were directed towards Verona.

In this way the French army, concentrated round Mantua, would be surrounded, attacked in front by Wurmser's army, attacked in the rear by Beaulieu's garrison and by the remaining scattered 10,000 men which were being rallied together.

The whole of this stratagem of Wurmser's was revealed to Bonaparte by its very execution.

Step by step he learnt:

That Quasdanovitch had attacked Salo and routed General Sauret, and that General Guyeux was left there isolated, in an ancient building into which he had withdrawn himself with a few hundred men;

That the Austrians had stormed Corona between the Adige and Lake Garda;

Finally, that they were in front of Verona.

On the morrow they were at Brescia. From all these points they would cross the Adige.

Whether doubtful of his chances, or whether on the contrary he wished to show the superiority of his genius, Bonaparte called together a council of his generals; all of whom advised a retreat. Augereau alone, the Parisian soldier, a son of the faubourg St. Antoine, declared that the rest might do what they liked, but that neither he nor his division would fall back a step.

Bonaparte knit his eyebrows, for from the first that had been his own intention; how did it happen that Augereau was of his opinion? Was it boldness or genius? He looked at his head, finely carved but depressed at the temples and enlarged at the back. It was simply and solely from temerity.

Bonaparte dismissed this council of war without openly deciding anything, but, when alone, his mind was made up.

Bonaparte's headquarters were at Castelnovo, almost at the end of the lake of Garda; he gathered as large an army round him as possible, raising the siege of Mantua; he abandoned the Lower Mincio and the Lower Adige, concentrating all his forces at Peschiera, to beat Quasdanovitch and Wurmser separately before they had accomplished their junction.

He began with Quasdanovitch, who was the nearest and weakest.

On the 21st Thermidor (July 31), while Serrurier was abandoning the siege of Mantua, burning his watch-towers, spiking his guns, burying his projectiles, and throwing his powder into the water, Bonaparte crossed the Mincio at Peschiera, and defeated Quasdanovitch at Lonato, whilst Augereau entered Brescia without striking a blow, and General Sauret, ascending as far as Salo, relieved Guyeux, who had been fighting for two days without bread or water, in his old building.

Quasdanovitch, who thought to surprise and beat us, was himself surprised and beaten; he stopped, dismayed, and decided not to engage in another battle until he knew what had become of Wurmser.

Bonaparte also pulled up: Wurmser was the real enemy to be wary of. Wurmser must be confronted: his rear-guard must become his van-guard, and _vice versâ_; it was high time to reverse the position.

Wurmser's generals had crossed not only the Adige, but also the Mincio, in order to effect their conjunction with Quasdanovitch at Peschiera: Bayalist advanced on the road to Lonato, and Lilpay drove General Varelle out of Castiglione; whilst Wurmser moved towards Mantua, which he believed was still blockaded, with his two divisions of infantry and two of cavalry.

When he reached General Serrurier's quarters, he found the watch-towers in ashes and the guns spiked.

Bonaparte was afraid, he had fled. To the Austrian general's mind the calculations of genius looked like fear.

But Bonaparte, whom Wurmser thought had flown, was engaged in cutting Bayalist's army in two at Lonato, forcing one portion upon Salo, which Junot pursued and scattered, himself pursuing the other, which he drove on Castiglione. The Austrian fugitives were caught between two fires, General Sauret being at Salo, and General Augereau at Castiglione.

They took 3000 prisoners at Salo and 1500 prisoners at Castiglione, they killed and wounded 3000 or 4000 men, they took twenty pieces of cannon, and Bayalist's fugitives were thrown amongst Quasdanovitch's.

Wurmser saw his mistake when he had scarcely got into Mantua: he rushed off with 15,000 men at the noise of the firing, managed to rally 10,000 of Bayalist's and Lilpay's forces, and drew up in line of battle.

Bonaparte accepted the challenge, but he needed all his troops; he galloped off to Lonato; in three days he personally inspected and organised everything; he rode five horses to death in those three days. He arrived at Lonato; a portion of the troops in that town were to advance on Salo and on Gavado to settle with Quasdanovitch; whatever troops besides were unengaged he took with him to Castiglione; he gave the command for the various troops to march forth, each to its destination; he remained at Lonato with 1000 men; he took a few moments' rest, and at night he intended to set out for Castiglione to fight a battle with Wurmser at break of day.

Bonaparte had just dismounted from his horse and sat down to table when news was brought to him to the effect that Lonato was surrounded by 4000 men, and that an Austrian bearer of a flag of truce was waiting to demand him to surrender.

With his 1000 men Bonaparte might manage to face 4000, and perhaps to conquer them. But he was urgently needed elsewhere, and he had resource to another method. He gave orders to the whole of his general staff to mount on horseback, caused the envoy to be brought in, and then ordered his eyes to be unbandaged.

The envoy, who little knew with whom he was dealing, was amazed to find himself before a general staff, when he expected but to find a few officers; nevertheless, he delivered his message.

"So, my poor fellow," Bonaparte said to him when he had finished, "you neither know who I am nor where you are? I am Bonaparte, commander-in-chief, and you and your 4000 men have fallen right into the midst of my army; go back to those who sent you and tell them I give them five minutes to surrender, and if they refuse I shall put every one of them to the sword, to punish them for the insult offered me."

A quarter of an hour later, the 4000 men had laid down their arms.

When night fell, Bonaparte was at Castiglione.

On the following day Wurmser was defeated, and left 2000 men on the field of battle, where our soldiers, worn out with fatigue, slept pell-mell among the dead.

In five days' time Bonaparte with 30,000 men had beaten 60,000; Wurmser had lost 20,000 men, killed, wounded, or taken prisoners. He had recaptured the Rivoli road between the Adige and the lake of Garda, which was the key to the Tyrol.

Bonaparte collected 28,000 men and dashed in pursuit of Wurmser, who, gaining Quasdanovitch's force, had still 40,000 men left; he won the battle of Roveredo, entered Trent, the capital of the Tyrol, left Vaubois to guard it and threw himself into the gorges of the Tyrol in pursuit of Wurmser; he chased 30,000 men before him with his 18,000, covering twenty leagues in two days, caught up Wurmser upon the banks of the Brenta, gave him battle at Bassano, took 4000 of his men prisoners, took all his war-material, drove him back upon the Adige, and left him and his remaining 14,000 men no other resource but to retire for shelter within the walls of Mantua, the blockade of which he had essayed to raise with 60,000 men.

This was the third Austrian army that Bonaparte had destroyed since he entered Italy.

Wurmser entered Mantua resolved to defend it to the last extremity, and, to add to his provender, he slew and salted his 7000 cavalry horses, converting the cavalrymen into foot-soldiers.

Then, infuriated at the way his men had been led, he condemned his officers as a punishment to parade the streets of Mantua for three months with distaffs in their hands instead of walking-sticks.

The officers obeyed this singular punishment without a murmur.

Bonaparte allowed Serrurier to blockade Mantua, and, turning back to Milan, he awaited fresh supplies from the Directory, employing his time until they came in founding the Cis-Alpine Republic.