CHAPTER V.

NAPOLEON AS ZEALOUS DEMOCRAT.

When Napoleon came on a visit to Ajaccio, he liked to live and work in Milelli—a little country-house in the neighbourhood of Ajaccio belonging to the family—where the old oak-tree may still be seen under which the stripling Bonaparte used to sit and dream, and anxiously revolve his plans of life.

The French Revolution came, the storming of the Bastille, the overthrow of the existing state of things.

The young Napoleon threw himself, with all the force of his impassioned nature, into the excitement of the time. Destiny, however, did not mean him to exhaust his energies in the struggle of the revolutionary parties; it had reserved him for something else. At a distance from Paris, and on his own little island, he was to play a merely preparatory part in the first stormy agitations of the new period. Corsica became his school.

We find him in Ajaccio as a young, enthusiastic revolutionist, declaiming in the clubs, writing addresses, helping to organize the national guard—in short, playing the great politician precisely in the way we are acquainted with from our own experience.

Ajaccio was at that time the centre of the Corsican revolutionists; the house of the Bonapartes their place of meeting; the two brothers, Joseph and Napoleon, undisputed leaders of the democracy. The little town was in a state of wild uproar. The commotion appeared to General Barrin, at that time in command of the island, of a threatening character; and he sent Gaffori's son, Marshal Francesco Gaffori, to check it. Gaffori was by no means successful in this; on the contrary, he was glad to find hospitality and protection in the house of Bacciocchi, afterwards Prince of Lucca and Piombino.

Napoleon and Joseph, meanwhile, assembled the democratic party in the Church of San Francesco, and prepared a congratulatory address to the Constituent Assembly, which contained at the same time the bitterest complaints of the oppressive character of the existing administration in Corsica, and expressed an urgent wish that the island should be declared an integral part of France.

Napoleon understood his time: renouncing his Corsican patriotism, he became decidedly French, and threw himself into the arms of the Revolution.

He returned to Valence in 1789; and soon after he is again in Ajaccio, where the active Joseph, while the national guard was in the process of formation, was zealously exerting himself to obtain an officer's commission. Marius Peraldi, the richest man in Ajaccio, and an enemy of the Bonaparte family, was made colonel of the national guard, and Joseph an officer.

It had in the meantime been proposed in Corsica to recall the exiles; and by the exertions of the two brothers Bonaparte and the Abbot Coti, the Corsican General Assembly was induced to name four deputies, who were to meet Paoli in France, and conduct him to the island. Among these was Marius Peraldi, and both Napoleon and Joseph accompanied the deputation.

When Paoli arrived in Paris, the Constituent Assembly had already (1st December 1789) incorporated Corsica with France, by a decree which for ever put an end to the political independence of the island. Mirabeau and Saliceti—Corsican deputy for the Third Estate, afterwards the celebrated statesman, and minister of Murat in Naples—proposed the resolution.

Napoleon himself hastened to Marseilles to welcome Paoli, and was witness to the tears of joy which the noble patriot shed when he again set foot on his native soil in Cape Corso. An assembly met in Orezza to deliberate on and regulate the affairs of the island. Napoleon and his foe, the young Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo, earned here, at the elections, the first honours as public speakers. Carlo Bonaparte's son could not but attract the attention of Paoli, who, astonished at the exuberance of intellectual resource and unerring judgment of the young man, is said to have expressed himself with regard to him in these terms: "This young man has a career before him; he needs nothing but the opportunity, to be one of Plutarch's men." It is related that Paoli on one occasion entered a locanda, and finding the rooms in disorder, was told in explanation by the landlord that a young man, by name Bonaparte, had been lodging there; had written day and night, and constantly torn what he wrote to pieces; had run restlessly up and down, and at last started off for the battle-field of Ponte Nuovo.

The young Napoleon had left no stone unturned to procure his brother Joseph the presidency of the district of Ajaccio, travelling as an adroit partisan through the villages of the region, soliciting votes, and spending money.

In Ajaccio he was indefatigably occupied in keeping the republican club at the due heat, and thwarting the priests and the aristocrats. A sanguinary struggle took place between the two parties in the little town; Napoleon's life was endangered, and an officer of the national guard was killed by his side. He narrates the details in a manifesto of his own composition. Blood continued to be shed for several days and several times the lives of Joseph and Napoleon were a stake.

Napoleon was considered the soul of the club of Ajaccio. Reminding us of the young politicians of our late popular commotions, we see him fulminate a stinging address against an aristocrat—Count Matteo Buttafuoco, the same who had invited Rousseau to Vescovato, and who, during the Corsican war of independence, had served in the French army, and lent the enemies of his country his arm against his country's cause. He was deputy of the nobility for Corsica, had voted in Versailles against the union of the Estates, and made himself odious by other votes of aristocratic and unpopular tendency. Against this man the young Napoleon wrote a manifesto in his country house at Milelli, which he printed in Dôle, and then sent to the club of Ajaccio. The pamphlet, rhetorical and impassioned, but substantially based on fact, is a notable contribution to our acquaintance with Napoleon. It has all the bold, poetic exuberance of diction characteristic of young revolutionists; and as I read it in this solitude of Ajaccio, it awakened in me amusing recollections of the years 1848 and 1849. But it is more than the mere pamphlet of a young demagogue—it is a preparatory exercise for the imperial edicts; it is the Emperor himself trying his wings. This manifesto is indispensable if we are desirous of insight into the nature and growth of Napoleon in the earlier periods of his development.

LETTER OF MONSIEUR BONAPARTE TO M. MATTEO BUTTAFUOCO, CORSICAN DEPUTY TO THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.

"MONSIEUR,—From Bonifazio to Cape Corso, from Ajaccio to Bastia, is but one chorus of curses upon you. Your friends hide themselves, your relatives disown you; and even the prudent man, who never allows himself to be mastered by popular opinion, is this time carried away by the general indignation.

"What is it you have done, then? What are the crimes that can legitimate an animosity so universal, and a desertion so complete? This, Monsieur, is precisely what I am about to investigate, by the aid of light which you yourself shall supply.

"The history of your life, at least since you were thrown upon the stage of public affairs, is known. Its main features are drawn here in characters of blood. There are details, however, not so generally known; I may therefore make mistakes, but I count upon your indulgence, and on your correcting them.

"After entering the service of France, you returned to see your relations; you found the tyrants beaten, the national government established, and the Corsicans, animated by the most generous sentiments, emulating each other in making daily sacrifices for the public weal. You, Monsieur, did not allow yourself to be led astray by the general ferment; far from it; you listened only with compassion to the babble of fatherland, freedom, independence, and constitution, with which the demagogues had been puffing up our meanest peasants. Profound reflection had taught you to estimate at its proper value this artificial excitement, which can only be maintained at the expense of the community. Of course the peasant must labour, and not act the hero, if he is not to die of hunger, but to bring up his family, and respect the authorities. As regards the persons who by their rank or good fortune are called to rule, it is impossible that they can for any length of time be so stupid as to sacrifice their ease and their influence to a chimera, and that they should stoop to pay court to a cobbler, for the sake of playing the Brutus. However, when you fell upon the project of gaining the friendship of Monsieur Paoli, it was necessary you should dissemble. Monsieur Paoli was the centre of all national movement. We will not deny him talent, nor even genius, of a certain kind; he had for a while made the affairs of the island flourish; he had founded a university, in which, for the first time since the creation, perhaps, those sciences which further the development of the mind were taught among our mountains; he had increased our means of defence by establishing an iron-foundry and powder-mills, and by erecting fortifications; he had opened ports which by encouraging commerce enlivened agriculture; he had created a marine which favoured our communications, while it was destructive to our enemies—and all that he had thus begun, was but the indication of what he would one day have accomplished. Harmony, peace, and freedom were the forerunners of national prosperity—had it not been, that, as _you_ had discovered, an ill-organized government, constructed on a false basis, was the still surer omen of the misfortunes into which the nation was to be plunged.

"Paoli's dream was to play the Solon, but he copied his model badly. He had put everything into the hands of the people, or its representatives, so that one could not exist except at its pleasure. Strange mistake, to subordinate to a day-labourer, a man who by education, birth, and fortune, is destined to rule! Such a palpable perversion of reason cannot fail, in the long-run, to produce the ruin and dissolution of the body politic, after it has brought it into uproar by every species of abuse.

"You succeeded according to your wish. Monsieur Paoli, continually surrounded by hot-headed enthusiasts, did not conceive it possible that a man could have any other passion than the fanaticism of freedom and independence. Through certain French introductions, you procured his intimacy, and he did not take time to test your moral principle by anything deeper than your words. By his influence you were chosen to conduct the negotiations in Versailles, in regard to the settlement of affairs which was effected through the mediation of the French cabinet. Monsieur de Choiseul saw you and understood you. Men know in an instant how to estimate souls of a certain stamp. Very soon you transformed yourself from the representative of a free people into the agent of a satrap. You communicated to him the instructions, the projects, the secrets, of the cabinet of Corte.

"This conduct, which people here find base and shameless, I, for my part, find quite simple; after all, in every sort of affair, the important point is to have a clear eye and a cool judgment.

"The prude judges the coquette, and thereby makes herself ridiculous; that is her history in a few words.

"A man of principle would judge you very severely; but you do not believe in men of principle. The common man, who is constantly misled by virtuous demagogues, can have no consideration from you, who do not believe in virtue. Your own principles alone must pronounce sentence upon you, like the laws upon a criminal; but those who know what supple policy means, find nothing but the greatest simplicity in your mode of acting; we come to the same result as before, therefore—in every sort of affair we must first see clearly, and then judge calmly. As to other matters, you can defend yourself no less victoriously, for you have not coveted the reputation of a Cato or Catinat; it is sufficient for you to resemble a certain class; and, with this class, it is a received dogma, that he who can have money and does not use it, is a simpleton, since money procures all the pleasures of the senses, and nothing is of any value but these pleasures. The liberal Monsieur de Choiseul accordingly was sufficiently pressing in his offers, whereas your own ridiculous country, according to its pleasant custom, repaid your services with the honour of serving it.

"When the treaty of Compiègne had been concluded, Monsieur de Chauvelin landed with twenty-four battalions on our coasts. Monsieur de Choiseul, who attached the utmost importance to the speedy accomplishment of the objects of the expedition, became so uneasy that he could not conceal his anxiety from you—you advised him to send you here with a few millions. As Philip took cities with his sumpter-mule, you promised to overcome every obstacle, and produce complete subjection.... No sooner said than done; you hastened over the sea, threw off the mask, and, with money and promotion in your hand, you opened communications with those whom you considered most accessible.

"The Corsican cabinet had no idea that a Corsican could love himself more than his country—it had intrusted you with its interests. As you, on the other hand, had no idea that a man could _not_ love money and himself more than his country, you sold yourself and hoped to buy every one else. Profound moralist! you knew the price of each man's fanaticism. A few pounds of gold more or less, were for you the shades of difference in character!

"You deceived yourself, however; the weak were perhaps shaken, but they were shocked at the frightful thought of lacerating the bosom of their country; they imagined they saw their fathers, their brothers, or their friends, who had perished in its defence, rising from their graves to overwhelm them with curses. These ridiculous prejudices were powerful enough to check you in your career. You sighed that you had to deal with a childish people; but, Monsieur, such refined sentiments as yours are not given to the multitude, and they live on in poverty and wretchedness, while the prudent man, as soon as circumstances become in any degree favourable to him, knows how to rise. And that is pretty nearly the moral of your history.

"In giving account of the obstacles which interfered with the fulfilment of your promises, you proposed that the Royal-Corse regiment should be sent here. You hoped that its example would convert our too good and too simple peasantry; that it would accustom them to a thing in which they found so much that was repulsive—but you were deceived in this hope too. Did not Rossi, Marengo, and some other fools, excite such an enthusiasm in this regiment, that the collective officers declared, in an authentic document, that they would rather send back their commissions than break their oath, or be unfaithful to still more sacred duties?

"You found yourself compelled to set the example yourself. Not at all disconcerted, you threw yourself into Vescovato, at the head of some friends and a detachment of French soldiers; but the terrible Clemens hunted you from the nest. You retired to Bastia with the companions of your adventure, and with your family. This little affair did not bring you much honour; your house, and the houses of your associates, were burnt down. In your place of security, you mocked at these impotent exertions of a dying cause.

"It is boldly affirmed here, that you wished to arm the Royal-Corse against its own brothers. And, in the same spirit, people are inclined to call your courage in question, on account of your slight defence of Vescovato. These are useless imputations. For the first is an immediate consequence, is a means for the execution, of your projects; and as we have affirmed that your mode of acting has been very simple, it follows that this incidental accusation is done away with. As regards your want of courage, I do not see that this is proved by the action of Vescovato; you did not go there to make war in earnest, but to encourage, by your example, those of the opposite party who already wavered. And then, what right had people to demand that you should have risked the fruit of two years' good behaviour, in order to let yourself be killed like a common soldier? But you must have been moved when you saw your house, and the houses of your friends, become the prey of the flames. Good God! when will silly mortals cease to take everything so seriously? When you allowed your house to be burnt, you compelled Monsieur de Choiseul to compensate you. The issue has confirmed the correctness of your calculations; you have been paid far beyond the value of what you lost. It is true, complaints have been made that you kept everything for yourself, and gave only a trifle to the wretched men you had corrupted. In order to know to what length you were capable of going, we only require to see how far you could go with safety; now, poor people, who were so much in need of your protection, were neither in a position to assert their claims, nor even to see clearly the wrong that was done them; they dared not exhibit their discontent, and rebel against your authority; detested by their countrymen, their return would not have been so much as safe. It is, therefore, natural that when you found a few thousands of dollars among your fingers, you did not allow them to slip through; that would have been stupid.

"The French, defeated notwithstanding their gold, their commissions, the discipline of their numerous battalions, the lightness of their squadrons, and the skill of their artillery, routed at Penta, at Vescovato, at Oreto, at San Nicolao, at Borgo, Borbaggio, and Oletta, retired behind their entrenchments completely discouraged. The winter, the time of their repose, was for you, Monsieur, a period of the greatest diligence; and though you could not triumph over the obstinacy of prejudices deeply-rooted in the minds of the people, you succeeded in corrupting some of their leaders, whom you robbed of their nobler sentiments, though with difficulty; and this, and the thirty battalions that Monsieur de Vaux brought with him in spring, made Corsica bow her neck to the yoke, and forced Paoli and the most enthusiastic to retire.

"A number of the patriots had fallen in the defence of their independence, others had fled a proscribed country—now the loathsome nest of tyranny; but many had neither died nor been able to flee, they became the objects of persecution. Souls that had proved themselves superior to corruption were of another stamp. The French supremacy could only be secured by their complete extinction. Ah! this plan was but too punctually executed. Some died the victims of supposititious crimes; others, betrayed by those to whom they had extended their hospitality and their confidence, expired upon the scaffold, repressing their tears. Great numbers, immured by Narbonne-Fritzlar in the jail of Toulon, poisoned by bad food, tortured by their chains, loaded with every species of misusage, lived for some time in the spasms of the death-struggle, only to see death slowly approaching.... O God, witness of their innocence, why hast Thou not made Thyself their avenger?

"In this general misery, in the midst of the cries and groans of this unhappy people, you began meanwhile to enjoy the fruits of your labour. Honours, titles, pensions rained upon you; your possessions would have increased still more rapidly if Madame Dubarry, occasioning the fall of Monsieur de Choiseul, had not deprived you of a protector who knew how to estimate your services. The blow did not discourage you; you re-established yourself by your activity in the subordinate bureaus; you saw nothing in it but the necessity of increasing your diligence. People in higher quarters found themselves flattered, your services were so notorious!... Nothing was withheld from you. Not content with the lake of Biguglia, you requested portions of the lands of several communes. How could you rob them of these? people ask. I, for my part, ask: What consideration could you be expected to have for a nation which you knew detested you?

"Your favourite project was the division of the island among ten barons. What! not content with helping to forge the chains of your country, you proposed also to subject it to an absurd feudalism! But I commend you for doing the Corsicans all the harm that was in your power; you were at war with them, and in war it is an axiom to do hurt for your own advantage.

"But passing all this wretched business, let us come to the present, and conclude a letter, the shocking length of which cannot but have tired you.

"The posture of affairs in France was ominous of extraordinary events; you dreaded their effect in Corsica. The same madness with which we were possessed before the war, began again, to your great annoyance, to deprive this amiable people of its senses. You saw what would be the consequence; for, if generous sentiments were to sway public opinion, from an honest man you became a mere traitor; if these generous sentiments stirred the blood of our fiery fellow-citizens, something more wretched still; if a national government followed, what was to become of you? Your conscience accordingly began to make you uneasy. Frightened, cast down, you still did not despair; you resolved to stake your all, but you did it like a man of sense; you took a wife to strengthen your connexions. A worthy man, who, trusting to your honour, had given his sister to your nephew, saw himself deceived. Your nephew, whose paternal inheritance you had devoured to increase a property that should have been his, found himself with a numerous family plunged into misery.

"When you had arranged your private affairs, you threw a glance upon the country. You saw it reeking with the blood of its martyrs, covered with victims, and everywhere breathing nothing but thoughts of vengeance. You saw the reckless soldier, the impudent official, the greedy tax-gatherer, lording it with none to gainsay, while the Corsican, loaded with the triple chain, did not dare to think either on what he was, or on what he might yet be. In the joy of your heart you said to yourself: 'Matters are going on well, the only point is now to preserve them as they are, and forthwith you banded yourself with the soldier, the official, and the farmer of the revenue. All your aims were now centred on obtaining deputies inspired with similar sentiments; for, as concerned yourself, you could not imagine that a nation hostile to you would elect you as its representative. But you were destined to alter this opinion when the writs, with a perhaps intentional absurdity, ordered that the deputy of the nobility should be elected in an assembly composed of only twenty-two persons—all that was necessary was to gain twelve votes. Your associates of the Supreme Council were exceedingly active; threats, promises, caresses, everything was tried: you were successful. Your candidates in the communes were not: your First President was rejected, and two men—in your opinion, of extreme ideas—the one was son, brother, nephew of the most zealous defenders of the people's cause; the other had seen Sionville and Narbonne, and, sighing over his impotence, well remembered the atrocities which he had witnessed—these two men were proclaimed, and met the wishes of the nation, whose hope they became. The secret indignation, the rage, which seized on every one, when you were elected, does honour to your intrigues, and the influence of your associates.

"On arriving in Versailles, you became a zealous royalist; in Paris you saw, to your great affliction, that the government which was being erected on the ruins of the fallen system, was the same which among us had been drowned in so much blood.

"All the exertions of the despotic party were powerless; the new constitution, the admiration of Europe, has become an object of solicitude to every thinking being. There remained for you but one means of rescue, and that was, to make it be believed that this constitution was not fitted for our island, although it was precisely the same as that which had worked so prosperously, and to deprive us of which had cost so much blood.

"All the deputies of the old administration, entering as a matter of course into your cabals, served you with the warmth of men seeking their own interest. You drew up memorials in which you affirmed that the advantages of the existing government among us were matter of experience, and in which it was represented that any alteration was contrary to the wishes of the nation. At this time the town of Ajaccio got wind of your machinations; she raised her head, formed her National Guard, organized her committee. This, intervening so unexpectedly, alarmed you. The excitement spread. You persuaded the minister, of whom you had the advantage in knowledge of Corsican affairs, that it was necessary to send your father-in-law, Monsieur Gaffori, to the island, the worthy forerunner of Monsieur Narbonne; and Monsieur Gaffori, at the head of his troops, had the impudence to attempt to maintain by violence the tyranny which his father, of glorious memory, had by his genius beaten and suppressed. Innumerable blunders disclosed the mediocre talent of your father-in-law: the only art be possessed was that of making himself enemies. On every side people were uniting against him. In this imminent danger you lifted up your eyes and saw Narbonne. Narbonne, seizing a favourable moment, had formed the plan of establishing in an island which he had desolated by unheard-of cruelties, the despotism which tormented his own conscience. You assent: the plan is adopted, five thousand men receive orders; the decree directing the provincial regiment to be increased by a battalion, is despatched; Narbonne himself sets off. This poor nation without arms, without spirit to resist, is delivered, hopeless and helpless, into the hands of its executioner.

"O unhappy fellow-citizens, what detestable intrigues were you to be the victims of! You would not have understood them till it was too late. Where were your means of withstanding, without arms, ten thousand men? You yourselves would have signed the act of your degradation, hope would have fled, hope would have been extinguished, and days of misery would have succeeded each other without intermission. Liberated France would have looked on you with contempt, afflicted Italy with indignation, and Europe, astonished at a humiliation so profound, would have torn from her annals the pages that do your virtues honour. But the deputies of your communes penetrated the design, and put you on your guard in time. A king, who has constantly desired only the happiness of his people, informed by Monsieur Lafayette, that steadfast friend of liberty, of the true state of the case, was able to crush the perfidious machinations of a minister whom revenge ceaselessly spurred on to injure you. Ajaccio showed itself resolute in its address; the lamentable condition into which the most despotic of all governments had brought you had there been so powerfully impressed on people's minds. The hitherto slumbering Bastia awoke at the sound of danger, and seized its weapons with that resolution which has ever characterized it. Arena came from Paris to Balagna full of those sentiments which make a man capable of undertaking everything, and of fearing no danger. His weapons in the one hand, the decrees of the National Assembly in the other, he made the people's enemies turn pale. Achille Murati, the conqueror of Capraja, who carried despair into Genoa itself, and who wanted but opportunity and a wider field to be a Turenne, reminded the sharers of his fame that it was time to win it over again, and that their country needed—not intrigue, which it never understood—but steel and fire. Before the rising din of a resistance so universal, Gaffori withdrew into the nothingness from which intrigue had made him emerge against his will. He remained trembling in the fortress of Corte. Narbonne hastened away from Lyons to bury his shame and his hellish plans in Rome. A few days later, and Corsica is linked to France, Paoli is recalled, and in a single instant your prospects are changed, and a new career offered you for which you would never have ventured to hope.

"Excuse me, Monsieur, excuse me; I took my pen to defend you, but my heart utterly revolted against a system which brought treachery and perfidy in its train. What! son of this same fatherland, have you never had a filial feeling towards it? What! was there no emotion in your heart at the sight of the rocks, the trees, the houses, the neighbourhoods, which were the scene of your sports in childhood? When you came to the world, it carried you on its bosom, it nourished you with its fruits. When you came to years of discretion, it set its hopes upon you, it honoured you with its confidence, it said to you: 'My son, you see the wretched state to which the injustice of men has brought me; collecting my energies in my passionate grief, I once more attain a vigour which promises me sure and infallible restoration; but I am threatened anew; hasten, my son, to Versailles; inform the great king better, dissipate his suspicions, implore his friendship.'

"Well, and what then? A little gold made you a betrayer of the trust your country had reposed in you; for the sake of a little gold you were soon seen with the parricidal sword in your hand lacerating its bosom. Ah! Monsieur, I am far from wishing you any harm; but tremble ... there are pangs of conscience that avenge. Your fellow-citizens, who abhor you, will enlighten France as to your true character. The estates and the pensions, the fruit of your treasons, will be taken from you. Bowed down by age and misery, in the horrible solitude of crime, you will live long enough to be tormented by your conscience. The father will point you out to his son, the teacher to his scholar, and say: "Children, learn to honour your country, virtue, fidelity, and humanity.'

"And she, whose youth, beauty, and innocence they prostitute—her pure and chaste heart trembles under the touch of a polluted hand? Estimable and unhappy woman!...

"Soon the cordons of honour and the pomp of wealth will vanish, and the contempt of mankind will be heaped on you. Will you seek, on the breast of him who is the author of that report, a consolation with which your gentle and loving soul cannot dispense? Will you seek in his eyes tears to mingle with your own? Will your trembling hand, laid upon his heart, try to tell him the emotion of yours? Ah! if you find tears with _him_, they will be tears of remorse. If his heart beats, it will be in the convulsions of the wretch who dies cursing nature, himself, and the hand that leads him.

"O Lameth! O Robespierre! O Petion! O Volney! O Mirabeau! O Barnave! O Bailley! O Lafayette! see, this is the man that dares to sit by your side! Quite drenched in the blood of his brothers, polluted with crimes of every kind, he presents himself shamelessly in his General's uniform, the unrighteous hire of his villanies! He dares to call himself a representative of the nation, he—who has sold it, and you suffer it! He dares to raise his eyes to listen to your discourses, and you suffer it! This the voice of the people!—he had but the votes of twelve aristocrats! This the voice of the people!—and Ajaccio, Bastia, and most of the cantons wreaked that upon his effigy which they would willingly have done upon his person.

"But you, whom the mistake of the moment misleads, whose belief is for the present abused to make you oppose the projected alterations, will you endure the traitor? him who, under the cold exterior of a sensible man, conceals the greed of a lackey? I cannot believe it. You will be the first to drive him forth in shame and disgrace, as soon as you have been made to comprehend that web of knaveries of which he has been the artist.

"I have the honour, Monsieur, to be your very humble, and very obedient servant,

BONAPARTE."

"From my Cabinet of Milelli, "Jan. 23, in the second year."

"From my Cabinet of Milelli"—it sounds quite imperially. The reader will probably find that this bold, unsparing, powerful letter of the youth of twenty-one, half-Robespierre, half-Murat, is in no respect inferior to the best specimens of revolutionary eloquence furnished by the pamphlets of the period.

I may observe here, that of the six Corsican deputies to the Convention, three voted for the perpetual confinement of Louis Capet, two for his confinement till peace was established and his banishment thereafter, Cristoforo Saliceti alone for his death.