Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume I

366

"The day after the execution, the municipality published the will, as a proof of the fanaticism and crimes of the King." – Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 254.

367

"Si je n'ai pas répondu, c'est que la nature se refuse à répondre a une pareille inculpation faite à une mère." (Ici l'accusée paroit vivement émue,) "J'en appelle à toutes celles qui peuvent se trouver ici." —Procès de Marie Antoinette, p. 29.

368

"Sorrow had blanched her once beautiful hair; but her features and air still commanded the admiration of all who beheld her. Her cheeks, pale and emaciated, were occasionally tinged with a vivid colour at the mention of those she had lost. When led out to execution, she was dressed in white; she had cut off her hair with her own hands. Placed in a tumbril, with her arms tied behind her, she was taken by a circuitous route to the Place de la Révolution, and she ascended the scaffold with a firm and dignified step, as if she had been about to take her place on a throne, by the side of her husband." – Lacretelle, tom. xi, p. 261.

369

"Madame Elizabeth was condemned, with many other individuals of rank. When on the tumbril, she declared that Madame de Serilli, one of the victims, had disclosed to her that she was pregnant, and was thus the means of saving her life." – Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 424.

"The assassination of the Queen and of Madame Elizabeth excited perhaps still more astonishment and horror than the crime which had been perpetrated against the person of the King; for no other object could be assigned for these horrible enormities, than the very terror which they were fitted to inspire." – De Staël, vol. ii., p. 125.

370

Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 233.

371

"Simon had had the cruelty to leave the poor child, absolutely alone. Unexampled barbarity! to leave an unhappy and sickly infant of eight years old, in a great room, locked and bolted in, with no other resource than a broken bell, which he never rang, so greatly did he dread the people whom its sound would have brought to him; he preferred wanting any thing and every thing to the sight of his persecutors. His bed had not been touched for six months, and he had not strength to make it himself; it was alive with bugs, and vermin still more disgusting. His linen and his person were covered with them. For more than a year he had had no change of shirt or stockings; every kind of filth was allowed to accumulate about him, and in his room; and during all that period, nothing of that kind had been removed. His window, which was locked as well as grated, was never opened; and the infectious smell of this horrid room was so dreadful, that no one could bear it for a moment. He passed his days without any kind of occupation. They did not even allow him light in the evening. This situation affected his mind as well as his body; and it is not surprising that he should have fallen into a frightful atrophy." – Duchesse d'Angoulême, p. 109.

372

Louis-Philippe, of Orleans, chosen King of the French at the Revolution of July, 1830.

373

Dumouriez, vol. ii., p. 287; Toulongeon, tom. iii., p. 293; Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 284.

374

Carmagnole was the name applied in the early period of the Revolution to a certain dance, and the song connected with it. It was afterwards given to the French soldiers who first engaged in the cause of Republicanism, and who wore a dress of a peculiar cut.

375

Camus, Quinette, Bancal, and Lamarque.

376

Thiers, tom. iv., p. 118; Toulongeon, tom. iii., p. 316; Mignet, tom. i., p. 258. Shortly after the flight of Dumouriez, the French army was placed by the Convention under the command of General Dampierre.

377

Dumouriez was a man of pleasing manners and lively conversation. He lived in retirement latterly at Turville Park, near Henley upon Thames, and died, March 14, 1823, in his eighty-fifth year. – S.

378

Thiers, tom. iv., p. 66; Mignet, tom. i., p. 248; Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 311.

379

L'Ami du Peuple.

380

Mignet, tom. i., p. 259; Thiers, tom. iv., p. 145; Montgaillard, tom. iv., p. 9; Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 332.

381

Mignet, tom. i., p. 261; Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 346.

382

Thiers, tom. iv., p. 151; Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 343.

383

Hébert was also editor of an obscene and revolting revolutionary journal, entitled the "Père Duchêsne" which had obtained an immense circulation.

384

Thiers, tom. iv., p. 251; Toulongeon, tom. iii., p. 414; Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 356.

385

Thiers, tom. iv., p. 270; Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 375; Mignet, tom. i., p. 272.

386

"The Girondists felt without doubt, at the bottom of their hearts, a keen remorse for the means which they had employed to overturn the throne; and when those very means were directed against themselves, when they recognised their own weapons in the wounds which they received, they must have reflected without doubt on that rapid justice of revolutions, which concentrates on a few instants the events of several ages." – De Staël, vol. ii., p. 122.

387

Witness the following entry in the minutes of the Commune, on a day, be it remarked, betwixt the 29th May and the 2d June: "Antoinette fait demander pour son fils le roman de Gil Blas de Santillane – Accordé." – S.

388

Toulongeon, tom. iv., p. 114; Thiers, tom. iv., p. 389.

389

"The court immediately ordered that his dead body should be borne on a car to the place of execution, and beheaded with the other prisoners." – Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 269.

390

"Allons, enfans de la patrie,Le jour de gloire est arrivé;Contre nous, de la tyrannieLe couteau sanglant est levé."Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 270.

391

Mémoires de Buzot, p. 98.

392

"He had stabbed himself with a knife, concealed in his walking stick. In his pocket was found a paper, containing these words: 'Whoever you are, oh passenger! who discover my body, respect the remains of the unfortunate. They are those of a man who devoted his whole life to the service of his country. Not fear, but indignation, made me quit my retreat when I heard of the murder of my wife. I loathed a world stained with so many crimes.'" – Roland, tom. i., p. 46.

393

Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 277.

394

Afterwards Marquis of Stafford, and created Duke of Sutherland. He died in 1833.

395

Annual Register, vol. xxxv., p. 128.

396

In 1789, Maret published the proceedings of the States-General, under the title of "Bulletin de l'Assemblée," taking Woodfall's Parliamentary Register for his model. The success of the experiment was so great, that when Pankouke, the bookseller, projected the plan of the "Moniteur," he prevailed on Maret to transfer his labours to the new journal. Such was the origin of Napoleon's well-known Duke of Bassano.

397

Annual Register, vol. xxxv., p. 153.

398

See the Declaration, Annual Register, vol. xxxv., p. 139.

399

Annual Register, vol. xxxv., p. 250. – S.

400

Jomini, tom. iii., pp. 163-181; Toulongeon, tom. iv., pp. 6-43.

401

On the loss of Mentz, the Convention ordered Custine to Paris to answer for his conduct, and delivered him over to the revolutionary tribunal, by whom, in August, 1793, he was condemned and executed.

402

Accused of not having followed up the advantages at Hondscoote, by an immediate attack upon the British force. Houchard was brought before the revolutionary tribunal, condemned, and executed, 17th Nov., 1793.

403

Alexander, Viscount de Beauharnais, first husband of Josephine. Denounced as an aristocrat by his own troops, he was, in July, 1794, dragged before the revolutionary tribunal, which instantly condemned him to death.

404

Toulongeon, tom. iv., p. 142; Jomini, tom. iv., pp. 86-165.

405

Condemned to death, Nov. 6, 1793, by the revolutionary tribunal.

406

Jomini, tom. iv., p. 273.

407

La Roche-Jacquelein, p. 35; Guerres des Vendéans et des Chouans, tom. i., p. 31.

408

See ante, p. 110.

409

Dumouriez, vol. ii., p. 144.

410

Guerres des Vendéans, tom. i., p. 65; La Roche-Jacquelein, p. 38.

411

Thiers, tom. iv., p. 175.

412

Madame La Roche-Jacquelein mentions an interesting anecdote of a young plebeian, a distinguished officer, whose habits of respect would scarce permit him to sit down in her presence. This cannot be termed servility. It is the noble pride of a generous mind, faithful to its original impressions, and disclaiming the merits which others are ready to heap on it. – S.

413

The adoption of this wild costume, which procured them the name of brigands, from its fantastic singularity, originated in the whim of Henri La Roche-Jacquelein, who first used the attire. But as this peculiarity, joined to the venturous exposure of his person, occasioned a general cry among the Republicans, of "Aim at the red handkerchief," other officers assumed the fashion to diminish the danger of the chief whom they valued so highly, until at length it became a kind of uniform. – S.

414

La Roche-Jacquelein, p. 90.

415

The Memoirs of Madame Bonchamp, and still more those of Madame La Roche-Jacquelein, are remarkable for the virtues of the heart, as well as the talents which are displayed by their authors. Without affectation, without vanity, without violence or impotent repining, these ladies have described the sanguinary and irregular warfare, in which they and those who were dearest to them were engaged for so long and stormy a period; and we arise from the perusal sadder and wiser, by having learned what the brave can dare, and what the gentle can endure with patience. – S.

416

Mémoires d'un Ancien Administrateur des Armées Republicaines. – S.

417

Haxo died at Roche-sur-yon, April 26, 1794.

418

See Jomini, tom. vi., p 400.

419

A picture by Vernet, representing the attack on Nantes, estimable as a work of art, but extremely curious in an historical point of view, used to be in the Luxembourg palace, and is probably now removed to the Louvre. The Vendéans are presented there in all their simplicity of attire, and devoted valour; the priests who attended them displaying their crosses, and encouraging the assault, which is, on the other hand, repelled by the regular steadiness of the Republican forces. – S. – [This picture is still in the Luxembourg. The paintings of living artists are never admitted to the Louvre.]

420

La Roche-Jacquelein, p. 69; Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 143.

421

King Charles the Tenth.

422

Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 145.

423

See Southey's Thalaba, b. 12.

424

They punned on the word Mayence (Mentz,) and said, the newly arrived Republicans were soldiers of fayence (potter' ware,) which could not endure the fire. – S.

425

Beauchamp, Hist. de la Guerre de la Vendée, tom. ii., p. 99; Jomini, tom. iv., p. 318; La Roche-Jacquelein, p. 239; Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 151.

426

Mémoires, p. 240.

427

Jomini, tom. iv., p. 319. Beauchamp, tom. ii., p. 102.

428

Some derived it from Chat-huant, as if the insurgents, like owls, appeared chiefly at night; others traced it to Chouin, the name of two brothers, sons of a blacksmith, said to have been the earliest leaders of the Breton insurgents. – S.

429

Canclaux was born at Paris in 1740. After the revolution of the 18th Brumaire, Napoleon gave him the command of the 14th military division, and made him a senator. At the restoration he was created a peer. He died in 1817.

430

We can and ought to make great allowances for national feeling; yet it is a little hard to find a well-informed historian, like M. Lacretelle, [tom. xi., p. 146,] gravely insinuate, that England threw the unfortunate Royalists on the coast of Quiberon to escape the future burden of maintaining them. Her liberality towards the emigrants, honourable and meritorious to the country, was entirely gratuitous. She might have withdrawn when she pleased a bounty conferred by her benevolence; and it is rather too hard to be supposed capable of meditating their murder, merely to save the expense of supporting them. The expedition was a blunder; but one in which the unfortunate sufferers contributed to mislead the British Government. – S.

431

"This man, originally a painter, had become an adjutant in the Parisian corps; he was afterwards employed in the army; and, having been successful against the Marseillois, the deputies of the Mountain had, in the same day, obtained him the appointments of brigadier-general and general of division. He was extremely ignorant, and had nothing military about him, otherwise he was not ill-disposed." – Napoleon, Memoirs, vol. i., p. 19.

432

Stanislaus Fréron was son of the well-known victim of Voltaire, and godson of the unfortunate King of Poland. He accompanied the French expedition to St. Domingo in 1802, and being appointed sub-prefect at the Cayes, soon sunk under the influence of the climate. His portfolio falling into the hands of the black government, some of its contents were published by the authority of Dessaline, and subjoined to a work entitled "Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de Hayti." Among them are several amatory epistles from Napoleon's second sister Pauline, by which it appears that Fréron was the earliest object of her choice, but that Napoleon and Josephine would not hear of an alliance with the friend of Robespierre, and ready instrument of his atrocities.

433

Jomini, tom. iv., p. 208; Toulongeon, tom. iv., p. 63.

434

Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 98; Thiers, tom. iv., p. 161.

435

Before the arrival of Collot d'Herbois, Fouché (afterwards Duke of Otranto) issued a decree, directing that all religious emblems should be destroyed, and that the words "Death is an eternal sleep!" should be placed over the entrance of every burial ground. – See Moniteur, Nos. 57, 64.

436

An ass formed a conspicuous part of the procession, having a mitre fastened between his ears, and dragging in the dirt a Bible tied to its tail; which Bible was afterwards burnt, and its ashes scattered to the winds. Fouché wrote to the Convention – "The shade of Châlier is satisfied. Yes, we swear that the people shall be avenged. Our severe courage shall keep pace with their just impatience." —Moniteur; Montgaillard, tom. iv., pp. 113, 138.

437

Fouché, on the 19th December, wrote to Collot d'Herbois – "Let us show ourselves terrible: let us annihilate in our wrath, and at one blow, every conspirator, every traitor, that we may not feel the pain, the long torture, of punishing them as kings would do. We this evening send two hundred and thirteen rebels before the thunder of our cannon. Farewell, my friend! tears of joy stream from my eyes, and overflow my heart. – (Signed) Fouché." —Moniteur, No. 85.

438

Guillon de Montléon, Mémoires pour servir à l'Hist. de la Ville de Lyon, tom. ii., p. 405; Toulongeon, tom. iv., p. 68; Jomini, tom. iv., p. 186; Thiers, tom. v., p. 310; Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 109.

439

The Convention having, by a decree of the 17th March, 1792, come to the determination to substitute decapitation for hanging, this instrument was adopted, on the proposition of Dr. Guillotin, an eminent physician of Paris; who regretted to the hour of his death, in 1814, that his name should have been thus associated with the instrument of so many horrors. He had devised it with a view to humanity.

440

The fate of Custine illustrates this, – a general who had done much for the Republic, and who, when his fortune began to fail him, excused himself by saying, "Fortune was a woman, and his hairs were growing grey." – S. – He was guillotined in August, 1793.

441

Witness Houchard, who performed the distinguished service of raising the siege of Dunkirk, and who, during his trial, could be hardly made to understand that he was to suffer for not carrying his victory still farther. – S. – Guillotined, Nov., 1793.

442

Several generals of reputation sustained capital punishment, from no other reason than the jealousy of the committees of their influence with the army. – S.

443

Luckner, an old German thick-headed soldier, who was of no party, and scrupulously obeyed the command of whichever was uppermost at Paris, had no better fate than others. – S. – He was guillotined in Nov., 1793.

444

David is generally allowed to have possessed great merit as a draughtsman. Foreigners do not admire his composition and colouring, so much as his countrymen. – S.

445

Thiers, tom. iv., p. 6; Mignet, tom. i., p. 248.

446

Moniteur, No. 995, 25th December, 1793. – S.

447

Carrier was born at Yolay, near Aurillac, in 1756, and, previous to the Revolution, was an attorney. During his mission to Nantes, not less than thirty-two thousand human beings were destroyed by noyades and fusillades, and by the horrors of crowded and infected prisons. Being accused by Merlin de Thionville, Carnot, and others, he declared to the Convention, 23d November, 1794, that by trying him it would ruin itself, and that if all the crimes committed in its name were to be punished, "not even the little bell of the president was free from guilt." He was convicted of having had children of thirteen and fourteen years old shot, and of having ordered drownings, and this with counter-revolutionary intentions. He ascended the scaffold with firmness and said, "I die a victim and innocent: I only executed the orders of the committees."

448

See Montgaillard, tom. iv., p. 42; Toulongeon, tom. v., p. 120; Thiers, tom. vi., p. 373; Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 165; Vie et Crimes de Carrier, par Gracchus Babœuf; Dénonciation des Crimes de Carrier, par Philippes Tronjolly; Procès de Carrier; Bulletin du Tribunal Révolutionnaire de Nantes.

449

Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 309. "In 1793, a bookseller, (a pure Royalist in 1814,) had this inscription painted over his shop door, 'A Notre Dame de la Guillotine.'" – Montgaillard, tom. iv., p. 189.

450

Ronsin was born at Soissons in 1752. He figured in the early scenes of the Revolution, and in 1789, brought out, at one of the minor Paris theatres, a tragedy called "La Ligue des Fanatiques et des Tyrans," which, though despicable in point of style, had a considerable run. Being denounced by Robespierre, he was guillotined, March 24, 1794. His dramatic pieces have been published under the title of "Théâtre de Ronsin."

451

Strangers are forcibly affected by the trifling incidents which sometimes recall the memory of those fearful times. A venerable French ecclesiastic being on a visit at a gentleman's house in North Britain, it was remarked by the family, that a favourite cat, rather wild and capricious in its habits, paid particular attention to their guest. It was explained, by the priest giving an account of his lurking in the waste garret, or lumber-room, of an artisan's house, for several weeks. In this condition, he had no better amusement than to study the manners and habits of the cats which frequented his place of retreat, and acquire the mode of conciliating their favour. The difficulty of supplying him with food, without attracting suspicion, was extreme, and it could only be placed near his place of concealment, in small quantities, and at uncertain times. Men, women, and children knew of his being in that place; there were rewards to be gained by discovery, life to be lost by persevering in concealing him; yet he was faithfully preserved, to try upon a Scottish cat, after the restoration of the Monarchy, the arts which he had learned in his miserable place of shelter during the Reign of Terror. The history of the time abounds with similar instances.

452

Charlotte Corday was born, in 1768, near Séez, in Normandy. She was twenty-five years of age, and resided at Caen, when she conceived and executed the design of ridding the world of this monster. She reached Paris on the 11th July, and on the 12th wrote a note to Marat, soliciting an interview, and purchased in the Palais Royal a knife to plunge into the bosom of the tyrant. On the 13th, she obtained admission to Marat, whom she found in his bath-room. He enquired after the proscribed deputies at Caen. Being told their names – "They shall soon," he said, "meet with the punishment they deserve." – "Thine is at hand!" exclaimed she, and stabbed him to the heart. She was immediately brought to trial, and executed on the 17th. – Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 47; Montgaillard, tom. iv., p. 55. – Charlotte Corday was descended, in a direct line, from the great Corneille. See the genealogical table of the Corneille family, prefixed to Lepan's Chefs d'Œuvres de Corneille, tom. v., 8vo, 1816.

453

Marat was born at Neuchatel in 1744. He was not five feet high. His countenance was equally ferocious and hideous, and his head monstrous in size. "He wore," says Madame Roland, "boots, but no stockings, a pair of old leather breeches, and a white silk waistcoat. His dirty shirt, open at the bosom, exhibited his skin of yellow hue; while his long and dirty nails displayed themselves at his fingers' ends, and his horrid face accorded perfectly with his whimsical dress." —Mémoires, part i., p. 176.

"After Marat's death, honours, almost divine, were decreed to him. In all the public places in Paris triumphal arches and mausoleums were erected to him: in the Place du Carousel a sort of pyramid was raised in celebration of him, within which were placed his bust, his bathing-tub, his writing desk, and his lamp. The honours of the Pantheon were decreed him, and the poets celebrated him on the stage and in their works. But at last France indignantly broke the busts which his partisans had placed in all the theatres, his filthy remains were torn from the Pantheon, trampled under foot, and dragged through the mud, by the same populace who had deified him." —Biog. Mod., tom. ii., p. 355; Mignet, tom. ii., p. 279.

"In 1774, Marat resided at Edinburgh, where he taught the French language, and published, in English, a volume entitled 'The Chains of Slavery;' a work wherein the clandestine and villanous attempts of princes to ruin liberty are pointed out, and the dreadful scenes of despotism disclosed; to which is prefixed an address to the electors of Great Britain.'" —Biog. Univ.

454

See Note, ante, p. 264.

455

"Pache, Hébert, and Chaumette, the leaders of the municipality, publicly expressed their determination to dethrone the King of Heaven, as well as the kings of the earth!" – Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 300.