CHAPTER II

Joubert's loyalty towards my father--"Send me Dumas"--The Horatius Codes of the Tyrol--My father is appointed-Governor of the Trévisan--The agent of the Directory--My father fêted at his departure--The treaty of Campo-Formio--The return to Paris--The flag of the Army of Italy--The charnel-house of Morat--Charles the Bold--Bonaparte is elected a member of the Institute--First thoughts of the expedition to Egypt--Toulon--Bonaparte and Joséphine--What was going to happen in Egypt.

Joubert owed a large share of the success of that fine Tyrolean campaign to my father, and, being a loyal man, he did for his comrade-in-arms what under similar circumstances his comrade-in-arms would have done for him. Each report he sent in to Bonaparte contained my father's name coupled with the highest of praise. To have heard Joubert, one might have thought the whole success of the campaign was owing to my father's energy and courage. My father was the terror of the Austrian cavalry--he was a mediæval Bayard, and if, added Joubert, by one of those miracles which govern the march of the centuries, Italy had produced two Cæsars, General Dumas would have been one of them.

Very different was Berthier's treatment of him--Berthier, who had stigmatised my father as a "looker-on" during a campaign in which three horses were killed under him.

By degrees, as these things were brought to the notice of the general-in-chief, Bonaparte came round to my father's side, and when Joubert was leaving the camp of Grätz, where he had been paying the commander-in-chief a visit, Bonaparte spoke these few most pregnant words: "By the way, send Dumas to me."

Joubert hastened to deliver his commission directly he returned to his army. But my father was sulky, and it took all Joubert's friendly entreaties to persuade him to accede to Bonaparte's invitation. However, he started for Grätz, but with a fixed determination to send in his resignation to the Directory, if Bonaparte did not give him the reception he deserved.

My father was a Creole--with the Creole characteristics, nonchalant, impetuous, changeable. He had no sooner won his heart's desires than he conceived a profound disgust for them. When the energy he had expended in obtaining his desires had died down he fell back into his usual indifference and laziness, and at the first sign of opposition he would talk of the pleasures of country life, as did the ancient poet whose country he had conquered, and would send in his resignation to the Directory.

Happily Dermoncourt was at hand. When he received these letters of resignation to despatch, he slipped them in a drawer of his desk, put the key in his pocket, and quietly waited.

At the end of a week or a fortnight, or even a month, the momentary cloud of disgust which had swept over my poor father's spirits disappeared, and some brilliant charge or daringly successful manoeuvre would arouse his enthusiastic nature, ever eager to aspire after the impossible, and, with a sigh, he would let these words fall: "Upon my word, I believe I did wrong to send in my resignation."

And Dermoncourt, who was on the watch for this, would reply:

"Don't worry yourself, General; your resignation--"

"Well, my resignation--?"

"It is in that desk, ready to send off on the first chance; there is only the date to alter."

Therefore it was only by resolutely determining to send in his resignation himself straight to the Directory this time, at the first hint of any slight that might be put upon him by Bonaparte, that my father went to Grätz to meet him.

As soon as Bonaparte saw my father he opened his arms and exclaimed: "Welcome to the Horatius Codes of the Tyrol!"

My father could no longer retain his ill-feeling in the face of such a flattering reception; he held out his arms likewise, and a fraternal salute was given and returned.

"Oh!" my father exclaimed when, seven years later, Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor,--"oh! only to think I held him in my arms and had the chance of strangling him!"

Bonaparte had some end to serve in all he did, and his object in sending for my father was to gain help in organising the fresh cavalry divisions which were required by his army. He gave my father the task of raising these divisions, and also the command of them when organised.

In the meantime my father was appointed governor of the province of the Trévisan, and he and Dermoncourt immediately established themselves there. The new governor was received very favourably in that beautiful province. The finest palaces of the wealthiest of the senators of Venice were placed at his service. The Trévisan was to Venice what ancient Baiæ was to Rome, the country home of a queen.

The Municipality offered my father three hundred francs per day for his household expenses. My father went into his accounts with Dermoncourt (I have his calculations before me, scribbled on the back of a map of the Trévisan), and they decided that a hundred francs would be enough.

He therefore would only accept a hundred francs.

The poor Italians were not used to these methods, neither did they in the least understand the disinterestedness of the motive. They would not believe it for a long time, but continually expected either the imposition of a war tax, or some compulsory levy, or even some gross extortion similar to those said to be exercised in the East.

Once they really believed the fatal hour had come, and great was their alarm! The presence had been announced of an agent from the French Government commissioned to plunder the Italian money-lenders. He called upon my father to offer him a share in the prospective treasure; but only Dermoncourt was at home. That gentleman listened quietly to all the suggested projects made by that bird of prey, and to all his offers to my father of a share in the booty. Then, when he had done, Dermoncourt said:

"How did you come here?"

"Why, by carriage."

"Very well, my advice to you is to go back the same way you came, without even seeing the general."

"Why so?" asked the traveller.

"Why, because he is the very devil when certain proposals are made to him."

"Bah! I will dress these up so fine he will soon listen to them."

"You really intend to try him?"

"Why, certainly I do."

"Then go and try."

My father came in just at that moment, and the agent asked to see him alone.

My father cast a questioning glance at Dermoncourt, who nodded significantly that he had better grant the desired interview.

Alone with my father, the agent of the Directory held forth volubly upon his mission; then, as he noticed that my father listened without making any response, he proceeded from explanation to plans, from plans to peroration. The peroration contained the offer of my father's share of the plunder: but my father here cut him short. He took him by the collar, lifted him up at arm's length, opened the door into the room where Dermoncourt had summoned the whole of the staff to await the end of the scene:--

"Gentlemen," he said, "look well at this little blackguard, so that you may know him again, and if ever he presents himself at my outposts, no matter in what part of the world I may be, shoot him down without so much as disturbing me to tell me justice has been done."

The agent of the Directory did not stop to hear more; he vanished, and my father reckoned one implacable enemy the more.

These acts of depredation were common in Italy; but raids on money-lenders were usually the most lucrative during those times of distress and misery. Nearly all the jewellery, diamonds and silver belonging to the Italian nobility were in pawn. Many had even deposited therein, as though in a strong-room, everything valuable they possessed, when they were compelled by political events to leave their country.

Then an agent would come from the Directory, whether his authority were true or false (certain of the governors did not inquire too closely), and would make a clean sweep. He would first settle the ruling officer's share, then his own: the rest he sent to the Government.

One of the most notorious of these agents received the sobriquet of "Rapinat." His operations were chiefly confined to Lombardy. This quatrain was composed about him:--

"The Milanese whose goods decline, Would dearly like to know If Rapinat does spell _rapine_, Or rapine--_Rapinat._"

So when, after two months of residence in the country, my father gave up the governorship of the Trévisan to take that of Polesina, situated at the town of Rovigo, he found waiting for him outside the door of the palace a beautiful carriage drawn by four horses, with a coachman sitting on the box. It was a present from the town of Treviso. My father wished to decline it; but the gift was offered so gracefully and so heartily that he felt obliged to accept it. And the neighbouring municipalities sent him dozens of addresses: we will select two specimens haphazard.

"To CITIZEN GENERAL DUMAS, Governor of the Trévisan, and the Municipalities of Mestre, Noale, Castel-Franco, and Asolo.

"We, the undersigned representatives of the above-named municipalities, have been unanimously and specially appointed to present ourselves before you, Citizen General, to bear testimony to our appreciation of, and gratitude towards you for the lenity and equity of your government.

"Would to Heaven they had the means to show their admiration, their affection, and their gratitude! How happy would they be were it in their power to give you tokens worthy your deserts and your virtues!

"But as in their present condition of impoverishment and distress they are prevented from following the dictates of their hearts, they do themselves the honour to hope that you, their protector and their father, will be graciously pleased to accept this slight token.

"Continue your generous protection over us, and cast a fatherly eye on your children; for to you we look for comfort.

"We have the honour to remain

"HENRI-ANTOINE REINATI, President and State Secretary; JEAN ALLEGRI, President of the Municipality of Noale; FRANÇOIS BELHAMINI, President of the Municipality of Asolo; PHILIPPE DE RICOIDI, Vice-President of the Municipality of Mestre.

"CASTEL-FRANCO, _2 Messidor, fifth year of the French Republic and second of Italian Liberty._"

"LIBERTY--EQUALITY--VIRTUE.

"_9 Nivôse, 1797, Year V of the French Republic, one and indivisible, and II of Italian Liberty._

"THE MUNICIPALITY OF ADRIA to CITIZEN ALEXANDRE DUMAS, General of Division.

"This Municipality, General, cannot find words in which to express its sense of obligation to you for the kind acts you have condescended to shower upon us under divers circumstances; especially in relieving us by sending away the troops, and still more by refunding the sums unjustly extorted by General L----.

"The Municipality seizes this opportunity to offer you a horse, in recognition of your goodness to us, begging you to accept it as a humble tribute, and in grateful recognition of its many obligations towards you.

"We are, General, with sincere respects and affectionate greetings,

"LUNALI, President; LARDI, General Secretary."

It can easily be seen that the people were in despair when my father left the Trévisan: the whole province mourned, and the town of Treviso wanted to send a deputation to Bonaparte to ask him to allow them to keep their governor. When no hope of keeping him was left them, they asked for ten days longer in order to give him a round of fêtes. When the hour of departure came, all the notables of the town conducted him in a triumphal procession as far as Padua, where there were more festivities.

Here farewells were prolonged another week: the eight leading houses in the town each undertook to provide some form of entertainment; and my father changed his abode daily, spending a day and a night at each house of his various entertainers.

On reaching Rovigo, the seat of his fresh sphere of government, a reception awaited my father quite as complimentary as the farewells. The inhabitants of Polesine had been advised in advance by the inhabitants of the Trévisan, and knew whom they had to expect in their new governor.

Polesine, fertile in corn and pasturage, was the province where Bonaparte had established the squadrons of cavalry of which he wished to form a division, under my father's organisation.

On his arrival, as in the Trévisan, my father at once regulated his household expenses on the basis of a hundred francs a day, giving express orders to the municipalities not to authorise any supplies or to attend to any applications without his consent.

My father remained some time at Rovigo, as the negotiations of the Congress dragged out, until Bonaparte, impatient to conclude matters, decided to collect his army and proceed to the Tagliamento. My father then rejoined his division, and remained near that river until 18th October, 1797, when peace was signed at the village of Campo-Formio. Eight days later he returned to Rovigo.

By the peace of Campo-Formio, which ended the campaign of 1797,--that campaign wherein, thanks to my father and Joubert, the expedition to the Tyrol played so glorious a part,--Austria ceded Belgium and Mayence, Mannheim and Philipsbourg to France, and Austrian Lombardy to the Cis-Alpine Republic.

The Venetian States were divided. Corfu, Zante, Cephalonia, Santa Maura, Cerigo, and their dependent islands, with Albania, were ceded to France. Istria, Dalmatia, the Adriatic isles, Venice, and the Venetian territory on the mainland as far as the Adige, the Tanaro, and the Po were given up to the Austrian emperor, who thus found himself master of the Adriatic Gulf.

The remaining Venetian States on the mainland were given to the Cis-Alpine Republic under the suzerainty of the emperor. And the duc de Modena received Brisgaw as indemnity.

Poor municipality of Adria, which had dated its address to my father Year II of Italian Liberty!

During this sojourn on the Tagliamento--the reason for which, as we have said, was to urge forward the Austrian negotiations--my father dined three times a week at the headquarters of Bonaparte. Here it was that he became more intimately acquainted with Joséphine, whom he had already met at Milan, and who kept a friendly feeling in her heart for him even after his disgrace--the friendship of Creole for Creole.

They also met once a week at Udine. Bernadotte was in command in that town, and after the play they turned the hall into a ballroom and danced all night. Bonaparte danced very little, as might be imagined; but my father, Murat, Clarke, and all the young aides-de-camp danced a great deal.

The day after the signing of the treaty of Campo-Formio the ball was opened by a quadrille. Joséphine danced with Clarke, Madame Pauline Bonaparte with Murat, Mademoiselle Caroline Bonaparte with Dermoncourt, and Madame César Berthier was my father's partner.

Bonaparte set out for Paris directly the treaty of Campo-Formio was signed, and retired to the little house in the rue des Victoires, which he had recently purchased from Talma.

It was there that the Egyptian campaign was conceived and planned.

Bonaparte, with more success than the Carthaginian heroes, had accomplished in Italy almost as much as Hannibal. It remained for him to do in the East what Alexander and Cæsar had done.

But before proceeding to this, Bonaparte acquitted himself of a debt of gratitude that had long been owing to my father and to Joubert. He introduced my father to the acting Directory as the _Horatius Codes of the Tyrol_, and he deputed Joubert to present the _Standard of the Army of Italy_ to the heads of government.

This standard of the Italian army was more than a flag: it was a memorial--a wonderful memorial of a wonderful campaign.

On one side it bore the words:

"TO THE ARMY OF ITALY FROM A GRATEFUL COUNTRY."

On the other side was a list of the battles fought and places taken; followed by abridged inscriptions, grand in their simplicity, concerning the campaign that had just been closed.

That second side, alas, so soon to be forgotten by the men who successively headed the affairs of government, forgotten most of all by the nephew of the emperor himself, ran as follows:--

"150,000 prisoners; 170 standards; 550 pieces of cannon; 600 light field-guns; 5 pontoon trains; 9 ships of 64 guns; 12 frigates of 32; 12 sloops of war; 18 galleys: armistice with the King of Sardinia; convention with Genoa; armistice with the Duke of Parma; armistice with the King of Naples; armistice with the Pope; preliminaries of Léoben; convention of Montebello with the Republic of Genoa; treaty of peace with the Emperor at Campo-Formio.

"Liberty given to the peoples of Bologna, Modena, Ferrara, Massa, Carrara, Romagna, Lombardy, Brescia, Bergamo, Mantua, Cremona, to parts of Verona, to Chiavenna, Bormio, la Valteline, and Genoa; to the imperial fiefs; to the peoples of the departments of Corfu, Ægean Sea, and Ithaca.

"Sent to Paris all the principal works of Michael Angelo, Guerchino, Titian, Paolo Veronese, Corregio, of Albano, of the Carracci, of Raphael, and of Leonardo da Vinci."

Bonaparte stopped on his way through Mantua and visited the monument General Miollis had erected to Virgil; he also celebrated a military fête in honour of Hoche, who had recently died--in all probability from poison.

Bonaparte crossed through Switzerland to Moudon, where they gave him a brilliant reception, and where his carriage was broken.

He continued his journey on foot; and when near the charnel-house of Morat, which had not yet been destroyed by Brune, this other _Bold_ soldier, who himself was to have his mortuary at Waterloo, asked: "Where is the Duke of Burgundy's battlefield?"

"There, General," said a Swiss officer, pointing out what he wished to see.

"How many men had he?"

"Sixty thousand, sire."

"How was he attacked?"

"By the Swiss rushing down the neighbouring mountains, and, under cover of a wood which then existed, turning the Burgundian position."

"What!" he exclaimed. "Charles the Bold had sixty thousand men and yet he did not take possession of the mountains!" And the conqueror of Italy shrugged his shoulders.

"Frenchmen of to-day fight better than that," Lannes observed.

"The Burgundians were not French in those days," Bonaparte answered shortly; and, as his carriage was now brought up, repaired, he got in and rapidly drove away.

Bonaparte was not altogether easy in the position he had made for himself by this sequence of marvellous conquests. He had indeed received a triumphant ovation in Paris; the whole audience had risen, shouting, "Vive Bonaparte!" when they heard that he was present at the second representation of _Horatius Codes_; but all these ovations did not blind his eyes to facts.

That same night, he said to Bourienne: "Nothing is remembered in Paris. If I remain quiet long without doing something fresh, I shall be lost: one idol quickly replaces another in this great Babylon. If I were to attend the play three times more they would then ignore my presence."

A few days later he was made a member of the Institute, under the Science and Art division--an honour that gratified him extremely. He immediately sent the following letter to the president:--

"CITIZEN PRESIDENT,--I feel deeply honoured by the votes of the distinguished men who compose the Institute. I am very sensible that before I can become their equal I must for a long time yet remain their scholar.

"If there were any more expressive way by which I could express my high regard for them, I would avail myself of it. The true conquests, the only victories which bring no aftermaths of regret, are those that overcome ignorance.

"Those are the most honourable occupations, the most serviceable to all nations, which contribute to the widening of human knowledge. The true strength of the French Republic should from henceforth consist in making every new discovery a part of itself. BONAPARTE."

There is in Molière's _l'Avare_ a phrase which Harpagon thought of inscribing in letters of gold on the walls of his dining-room. Tell me, Prince Louis, if there is not a similar phrase for you to meditate upon in this letter of your uncle's to the Institute?

All these ovations in public places and these receptions by the Institute sufficed for a time to distract a brain so active as Bonaparte's, but they could not satisfy him for long.

Very soon he returned to his favourite idea--the East: it had come to him whilst he was waiting and watching the progress of peace negotiations at Paneriano.

"Europe is a mole-hill," he observed once, when walking with Bourrienne, César Berthier and my father; "it has never had such grand empires or great revolutions as the East, with its six hundred millions of peoples."

He wrote to the Directory as early as August 1797:--"We feel that the time is not far distant when, to destroy England's power thoroughly, we ought to take possession of Egypt."

"Malta is for sale," he said another day, "and it would not be paying too dearly for it if we gave for it half we paid for the peace of Campo-Formio."

Whether to conceal his true motives, or whether Bonaparte really believed in the possibility of invading England, on the 10th of February 1798 he set out for the north of France, and visited Boulogne, Ambleteuse, Calais, Dunkerque, Fumes, Nieuport, Ostend, and the isle of Walcheren. On his return from this journey he said to Bourienne:

"It is too risky a game; I dare not venture it, for I do not want to play wantonly with the fate of our beautiful France."

Was the idea of an Egyptian expedition a conception of Bonaparte's own brain, or had he come across the suggestion in some pigeonholes of ministerial papers belonging to the duc de Choiseul, who proposed a similar project to Louis XV.? It is impossible to say definitely. However that may be, the Directory raised no opposition to the ambitious desires of this second Cambyses.

The Directory was envious of his glory, and it feared the shadows thrown by the conqueror of Arcole and of Rivoli as it would fear the shade cast by the deadly upas-tree.

On April 12th, 1798, Bonaparte was appointed commander-in-chief of the Army of the East.

"How long shall you be in Egypt, General?" his secretary asked, as he offered his congratulations upon the appointment.

"Six months or six years," replied Bonaparte; "it all depends on events. I shall colonise the country, and shall introduce artists, workmen of all kinds, women, actors, poets. I am only twenty-nine years old now, and should then be but thirty-five, which is not such a great age. If all goes as I hope, six years will suffice to penetrate into India as far as Alexander did."

On the 19th April, Bonaparte announced his departure for Toulon. On the 4th May he left Paris, accompanied by Joséphine. On the 8th he reached Toulon.

Seven regiments of my father's division were ordered to Toulon. As my father arrived before either Bonaparte or Kléber, he took command of the troops for the expedition; handing it over to his senior, Kléber, when the latter arrived.

Toulon was full of memories for Bonaparte: it was from Toulon that the Eagle took his flight. The day of his arrival he walked by the sea-shore, and visited the Petit Gibraltar.

He had scarcely had time to see my father before he said: "Come and see me to-morrow morning as early as you like."

At six the next morning my father was crossing the parade-ground to see Bonaparte, when he came across Dermoncourt.

"Where the deuce are you off to, General, at this time of morning?" he asked.

"Come with me, and you will see," said my father. And they proceeded together.

As they approached their destination, Dermoncourt exclaimed:

"You are not going to see Bonaparte, are you, General?"

"I am."

"But he won't receive you."

"Why not?"

"Why, because it is too early."

"Oh! that doesn't matter."

"But he will be in bed."

"Quite likely."

"And in bed with his wife; he loves her as shopkeepers love their wives."

"So much the better! I shall be charmed to see good Joséphine once more."

And my father dragged Dermoncourt after him, half willing, half afraid to see what would happen.

Finally, he came to the conclusion my father had a special audience, and followed him.

My father ascended a staircase, went along a passage, opened a little door, pushed back a screen, and he and Dermoncourt, who still followed him closely, found themselves in Bonaparte's bedroom.

He was in bed with Joséphine, and, the weather being exceedingly hot, they were covered merely by a sheet, which showed the outline of their bodies.

Joséphine was weeping, and Bonaparte was trying to wipe her tears away with one hand, while with the other he laughingly played a military tattoo on the portion of her body which was turned towards the recess between bed and wall.

"Ah! Dumas," he said, as he caught sight of my father; "your arrival is opportune; you must help me to make this silly little woman listen to reason. Ought she to wish to come to Egypt with us? Now, would you take your wife there?"

"Upon my word, certainly not," my father replied. "She would be in my way dreadfully."

"Now, then! you see what I said; and you know that Dumas is not a bad husband, he loves his wife and his daughters. Listen: I may return in six months, or we may be over there several years."

At that Joséphine's tears flowed faster than ever.

"If we stay there some years, the fleet will have to return to fetch some twenty thousand men from the Italian coasts. Return to Paris, tell Madame Dumas, and both of you shall return to us with that convoy. Will that suit you, Dumas?"

"Perfectly," replied my father.

"When there, my dear Joséphine, Dumas, who has only daughters, and I who have not even those, will each of us do our best to produce a boy: if we have a boy, he and his wife shall be its godparents; if he has a boy, you and I will be its godparents. There now, that is a promise; stop crying, and let us talk business."

Then, turning to Dermoncourt, Bonaparte said:

"M. Dermoncourt, you have just heard a word drop which indicates the destination of our expedition. Not a creature knows it yet: do not let the word 'Egypt' escape your lips; you will readily understand the importance of such a secret."

Dermoncourt signified that he would be as dumb as a disciple of Pythagoras.

Joséphine consoled herself: indeed, if we may believe Bourrienne, she managed to console herself too well.

On the 15th May my father again visited Bonaparte, and the departure was fixed for the 19th.

He found Bonaparte just about to dictate an order to Bourrienne; so he was discreetly about to withdraw, when Bonaparte called after him: "No, stay, you are not in the way;--hear what I am going to do."

Then, putting his hand on that giant's shoulder: "What I like about you, Dumas (he said) is, not only your indisputable courage, but your humanity, a rarer quality. I know that Collot d'Herbois wanted to cut your head off because in some little town in the Tarantaise you rescued from the guillotine three or four poor devils who did not wish to let their village bells be melted down. Very well! Would you believe that only six weeks ago they shot an old man of eighty--the butchers--under cover of the law _sur les émigrés._ Now write, Bourrienne." And he dictated.

"HEADQUARTERS AT TOULON,

"27_th Floréal, Year VI_ (16_th May_ 1798).

"BONAPARTE, Member of the National Institute, to the Military Commissioners of the 9th Division established in consequence of the law of 19th Fructidor.

"I learn with the deepest concern, citizens, that aged people of seventy and eighty years old, poor women who were _enceinte_ and needed by their children, have been shot as suspected of wanting to emigrate.

"Have, then, the soldiers of Liberty become executioners? Has the spirit of compassion, which they take even into the very battlefield, become dead within their hearts? The law of 19th Fructidor was a measure providing for public safety; its object was to get at conspirators, not miserable women, and worn-out old men.

"I exhort you, then, citizens, whenever the law brings before your tribunal people above sixty years of age or women, to declare that you have respect for the aged and the women of your enemy even in the midst of fighting.

"The military officer who signs a sentence against any person incapable of carrying arms is a coward.

"BONAPARTE."

As he left Bonaparte's house, my father met Kléber re-entering it.

"You do not know what we are going to do over there?" he said.

"We are going to found a colony."

"No, we are going to re-establish a kingdom."

"Oh! oh!" said Kléber, "we shall see."

"Very well!--you _will_ see."

And with these words the two friends parted.

On the 19th of May they set sail.