Napoleon

A young woman is sitting in a tent. Wrapped in a shawl, she is suckling her baby, and listening to a distant rumbling and roaring. Are they still shooting, though night has fallen? Maybe it is only the sound of one of those autumn thunderstorms whose echoes reverberate from the mountains; or perhaps it is nothing more than the murmur from the surrounding forest of pines and evergreen oaks, where foxes and wild swine have their lairs. She looks like a gipsy, sitting there with her white breast half covered by the shawl, brooding within the murky tent, uncertain what the fate of the day may have been. Now she hears the sound of hoof-beats. Is it he? He promised to come; but it is a long way from the fighting line, and the mists are rising.

A taciturn boy, small, shy, and lonely, sits reading in a corner of the garden. It is his own plot in the school garden at Brienne, and he has made a fence round it. Really, only a third of the enclosure is his own, for he has fenced in the plots of neighbours on either side. They may come in too; but woe to any one else who disturbs his privacy! He rushes furiously at the intruder. A little while ago, when the boys had had a fireworks’ display, two of his schoolmates, who had been slightly burned, had run away to his garden for refuge. He had driven them out, flourishing a hoe at them.

No punishment will bring him to reason in this matter. The masters shake their heads and let him go his own way.

“The youngster is made of granite,” says one of them, “but there is a volcano inside.”

No one may touch this little kingdom of his in the garden, though part of it is usurped. He has an ardent feeling for his own independence.

Then it came to pass that young Captain Buonaparte, returning from Avignon whither he had been sent for a consignment of gunpowder, paid a visit to his fellow-countryman Saliceti, who introduced the young artillerist to the painter-general. After dinner, the dilettantes went for a stroll, and happened upon a 24-pounder, several miles from the sea. They began to boast of all that the gun would do. The expert assured them that, in its present position, it would be useless. He fired four shots to show them that the sea was quite out of range. Dumbfounded, they kept Buonaparte at Toulon, and set him to work.

“At last, one end of the rope is in my hands. Grip and hold fast!” thinks the lonely man with the strong will. With amazing activity, our captain has heavy guns brought from all possible places along the coast. In six weeks, he has more than a hundred pieces of ordnance at his disposal.

For, meanwhile, Robespierre had fallen, and had perished by the guillotine. There is a general movement of repudiation. Every one wishes to make out that only under compulsion did he hold converse with the tyrant. Those who wish to prove themselves guiltless, look round for victims. The best victims will be those who are not in Paris to make a fight for it. Quick, quick, lest we should be suspected of having belonged to Robespierre’s faction! General Buonaparte! He has just been on a secret mission to hostile Genoa. Lay the traitor by the heels! He was colloguing with Robespierre to bring about the destruction of our southern army. Hale him to Paris for trial!

Napoleon is in Fort Carrée near Nice. All his papers have been seized. It is his birthday. “To-day I am twenty-five,” he thinks, as he glances seaward through the grating. If he could lean out of the window, he would catch a glimpse of Corsica. How many attempts he has made there, only to be defeated! Was the destiny of a young aspiring soul ever before built upon such a series of catastrophes? What has Plutarch to say on this matter? Cashiered, banished, outlawed—as far as Corsica is concerned. Now, after all his plans, he is a prisoner of France. Next week, perhaps, he will be standing in the barrack yard, with his back against the wall, awaiting a score of bullets. What is to be done?

Outside Grenoble, near La Mure, he has his first encounter with the royal troops. They have orders to exterminate him and his “band of brigands”; the officers have taken the oath to the king just as in former days they had taken the oath to the Emperor. The order to attack is given. Is the blood of brethren to be shed? That is what Napoleon has spent a lifetime in avoiding. Is this highway to be turned into a battle-field? He alights from his horse, takes ten strides towards them, and shouts:

“Soldiers of the fifth army corps! Don’t you know me? If there is one among you who wishes to kill his Emperor, let him come forward and do so. Here I am!” Saying which, he throws open his grey cloak.

A terrible pause. What will happen?