Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume I

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.

456

Gobel was born at Thann, in Upper Alsace, in 1727. In January, 1791, he took the oath of fidelity to the new constitution, and in March following was installed Bishop of Paris, by the Bishop of Autun, M. de Talleyrand. In April, 1794, he was dragged before the revolutionary tribunal, accused (with Chaumette, and the actor Grammont,) of conspiracy and atheism, and executed. See, in the Annales Catholiques, tom. iii., p. 466, a letter from the Abbé Lothringer, one of his vicars, showing that Gobel died penitent.

457

"On présente le bonnet rouge à Gobel; il le met sur la tête. Un grand nombre de membres – 'L'accolade à l'évêque de Paris.' —Le Président. 'D'après l'abjuration qui vient d'être faite, l'évêque de Paris est un être de raison: mais je vais embrasser Gobel.' – Le président donne l'accolade à Gobel." —Moniteur, No. 49, 2d décade de Brumaire, 9th November.

458

Toulongeon, tom. iv., p. 124; Montgaillard, tom. iv., p. 157. "Gaivernon, one of the constitutional bishops, exclaimed, 'I want no other god, and no other king, but the will of the people.'" – Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 302.

459

A Mademoiselle Maillard, at that time the mistress of Mormoro.

460

"The goddess, after receiving the fraternal hug of the president, was mounted on a magnificent car, and conducted, amidst an immense crowd, to the church of Notre-Dame, to take the place of the Holy of Holies. Thenceforward that ancient and imposing cathedral was called 'the Temple of Reason.'" – Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 306; Thiers, tom. v., p. 342; Toulongeon, tom. iv., p. 124.

461

"C'est ici l'asile du sommeil eternel."

462

Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 333.

463

Sophie Arnould, born at Paris in 1740, was not less celebrated for her native wit than her talents on the stage. Shortly after her death, in 1803, appeared "Arnouldiana, ou Sophie Arnould et ses contemporaires."

464

This miserable visionary passed herself off at one time as the mother of God, and at another as a second Eve, destined to regenerate mankind. In 1794, she was arrested and sent to the Conciergerie, where she died, at the age of seventy. – See Les Mystères de la Mère de Dieu devoilés, in the Collection des Mémoires relatifs à la Rev. Franç., tom. xx., p. 271.

465

This aged lunatic, who fancied herself to be with child of a new Messiah, died in 1815.

466

See ante, p. 109.

467

Gerle was imprisoned in the Conciergerie, but liberated through the interference of Robespierre. He was employed, during the reign of Napoleon, in the office of the home department.

468

Chaumette was born at Nevers in 1763. For some time he was employed as a transcriber by the journalist Prudhomme, who describes him as a very ignorant man. In 1792, he was appointed attorney of the Commune of Paris, upon which occasion he changed his patronymic of Pierre-Gaspard for that of Anaxagoras – "a saint," he said, "who had been hanged for his republicanism." He it was who prepared the charges and arranged the evidence against Marie Antoinette. On being committed to the prison of the Luxembourg, "he appeared," says the author of the Tableau des Prisons de Paris, "oppressed with shame, like a fox taken in a net: he hung his head, his eye was mournful and cast down, his countenance sad, his voice soft and supplicating. He was no longer the terrible attorney of the Commune." He was guillotined, 13th April, 1794, with the apostate bishop, Gobel, and the actor Grammont.

469

Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 363.

470

"Such was the public avidity to witness the execution of Hébert and his companions, that considerable sums were realized by the sale of seats. Hébert wept from weakness, and made no attempt to conceal his terrors. He sunk down at every step; while the populace, who had so recently endeavoured to deliver him from the fangs of the Convention, loaded him with execrations, mimicking the cry of the newsmen who hawked his journal about the streets." – Thiers, tom. vi., p. 142.

471

Of the pamphlet, entitled "Le Vieux Cordelier," one hundred thousand copies, Lacretelle says, were sold in a few days. It was reprinted, in 1825, in the Collection des Mémoires sur la Révolution.

472

Mignet, tom. ii., p. 308; Thiers, tom. vi., p. 189.

473

"Sneak into exile!" said he, "can a man carry his country at the sole of his shoe?" – Thiers, tom. vi., p. 148.

474

Riouffe, a fellow captive, states, that when Danton entered his prison, he exclaimed, "At last I perceive, that in revolutions the supreme power rests with the most abandoned." —Mémoires, p. 67.

"Seeing Thomas Payne, he said to him, 'What you have accomplished for the happiness and freedom of your country, I have in vain endeavoured to effect for mine. I have been less successful, but am not more culpable.' At another time he exclaimed, 'It is just about a year since I was the means of instituting the revolutionary tribunal. I ask pardon of God and man for what I did: my object was to prevent a new September, and not to let loose a scourge of humanity.' … 'My treacherous brethren (mes frères Caïn) understand nothing of government: I leave every thing in frightful confusion.' … 'It were better to be a poor fisherman than a ruler of men.'" – Thiers, tom. vi., p. 155; Mignet, tom. ii., p. 312.

475

La Croix was born, in 1754, at Pont-Audemer. His destruction being resolved on by Robespierre, he was arrested with Danton, 31st March, and executed 5th April, 1794. When the act of accusation was brought, Danton asked him what he said to it. "That I am going to cut off my hair," said he, "that Samson [the executioner] may not touch it."

476

Boyer Fonfrède was born at Bordeaux. Being appointed deputy from the Gironde to the Convention, he vigorously opposed Marat and the Mountain. He escaped the first proscription of the Girondists, but perished on the scaffold in 1793.

477

Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 380.

478

Camille Desmoulins was born at Guise in 1762, and educated with Robespierre, at the College of Louis-le-Grand. He it was who, in 1789, began the practice of collecting groups of people to harangue them in the streets, and who advised the revolutionists to distinguish themselves by a badge. Hence the tricolor cockade. After the taking of the Bastile, he published, under the name of "Attorney-General of the Lantern," a periodical paper, called "Révolutions de France et de Brabant." "It must not, however," says M. Dumont, "be imagined, that he excited the people to use the lantern-posts instead of the gallows, an abomination attributed to him by Bertrand de Moleville – quite the reverse: he pointed out the danger and injustice of such summary executions, but in a tone of lightness and badinage, by no means in keeping with so serious a subject. Camille appeared to me what is called a good fellow; of rather exaggerated feelings, devoid of reflection or judgment, as ignorant as he was unthinking, not deficient in wit, but in politics possessing not even the first elements of reason." – P. 135. On his trial, being interrogated as to his age, he answered, "I am thirty-three, the same age as the Sans-Culotte Jesus Christ when he died." On the day of execution he made the most violent efforts to avoid getting into the fatal cart. His shirt was in tatters, and his shoulders bare; his eyes glared, his mouth foamed at the moment when he was bound, and on seeing the scaffold, he exclaimed, "This, then, is the reward reserved for the first apostle of liberty!" His wife, a beautiful creature, by whom he was tenderly beloved, was arrested a few days after his death, and sent to the scaffold. – Thiers, tom. vi., p. 169; Biog. Mod., tom. i., p. 364; Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 380.

479

Hérault Séchelles was born at Paris in 1760. He began his career at the bar, by holding the office of King's advocate at the Châtelet; and afterwards, by the patronage of the Queen, was appointed advocate-general. Shortly before his arrest he was offered a retreat in Switzerland, and a passport, in a fictitious name, from the agent of Bâle, but his answer was, "I would gladly accept the offer, if I could carry my native country with me." He published "Visite à Buffon," "Théorie de l'Ambition," and "Rapports sur la Constitution," &c., 1793.

480

Fabre d'Eglantine, born at Carcassonne in 1755, was in early life an actor, and performed at Versailles, Brussels, and Lyons, but with moderate success. As an author he discovered considerable talent; the latter part of his name being assumed, in memory of a prize which he had won in his youth. His most successful production was a comedy, entitled, "Le Philinte de Molière, ou La Suite du Misanthrope," in which he has traced the beau idéal of an honest man. His "[OE]uvres Mêlées et Posthumes," were published, in two volumes, in 1802. One of the things that seemed most to trouble him after his arrest was, that he had left among his papers an unpublished comedy called "L'Orange de Malte," which he considered better than his "Philinte," and which he feared Billaud-Varennes would get hold of, and publish as his own. Mercier, his colleague, says of him, "I do not know whether Fabre's hands were stained by the lavishing of money not his own, but I know that he was a promoter of assassinations; poor before the 2d of September, 1792, he had afterwards an hotel, and carriages, and servants, and women." "As to Fabre," says Madame Roland, "muffled in a cowl, armed with a poniard, and employed in forging plots to defame the innocent, or to ruin the rich, whose wealth he covets, he is so perfectly in character, that whoever would paint the most abandoned hypocrite, need only draw his portrait in that dress."

481

Westermann was born in 1764, at Molsheim, in Alsace. In December, 1792, he was denounced to the Convention, upon proof, as having, in 1786, stolen some silver plate from a coffee-house. "In La Vendée," says Prudhomme, "he ran from massacre to massacre, sparing neither adversaries taken in arms, nor the peaceful inhabitants." M. Beauchamp says that "he delighted in carnage, and would throw off his coat, tuck up his sleeves, and then, with his sabre, rush into the crowd, and hew about him to the right and left. But from the moment that he apprehended death, his dreams were of the horrors which he had perpetrated."

482

"On the way to execution, Danton cast a calm and contemptuous look around him. Arrived at the steps of the scaffold, he advanced to embrace Hérault Séchelles, who held out his arms to receive him; the executioner interposing, 'What!' said he, with a smile of scorn, 'are you, then, more cruel than death? Begone! you cannot prevent our heads from soon uniting in that basket.' For a moment he was softened, and said, 'Oh! my beloved! oh, my wife, I shall never see thee more!' but instantly checking himself, exclaimed, 'Danton, no weakness!' and ascended the scaffold." – Thiers, tom. vi., p. 169; Biog. Mod., tom. i., p. 332.

483

It has been said, that when Danton observed Fabre d'Eglantine beginning to look gloomy, he cheered him with a play on words: "Courage, my friend, we are all about to take up your trade —Nous allons faire des vers."

484

Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 382.

485

When we read such miserable stuff, and consider the crimes which such oratory occasioned, it reminds us of the opinion of a Mahomedan doctor, who assured Bruce that the Degial, or Antichrist, was to appear in the form of an ass, and that multitudes were to follow him to hell, attracted by the music of his braying. – S.

486

Thiers, tom. vi., p. 291.

487

Thiers, tom. vi., p. 197.

488

Poor Anacharsis Clootz! He had been expelled from the Jacobin Club as a Prussian, an ex-noble, and, what perhaps was not previously suspected, a person of fortune enough to be judged an aristocrat. His real offence was being a Hébertist, and he suffered accordingly with the leaders of that party. – This note was rather unnecessary; but Anacharsis Clootz was, in point of absurdity, one of the most inimitable personages in the Revolution. – S. – See ante, p. 139.

489

"The most indecent irreligion served as a lever for the subversion of the social order. There was a kind of consistency in founding crime upon impiety; it is an homage paid to the intimate union of religious opinions with morality. Robespierre conceived the idea of celebrating a festival in honour of the Supreme Being, flattering himself, doubtless, with being able to rest his political ascendency on a religion arranged according to his own notions; as those have frequently done who have wished to seize the supreme power. But, in the procession of this impious festival, he bethought himself of walking the first, in order to mark his pre-eminence; and from that time he was lost." – Mad. de Staël, vol. ii., p. 142.

490

Thiers, tom. vi., p. 268; Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 15; Mignet, tom. ii., p. 322; Montgaillard, tom. iv., p. 207.

491

"Lecointre de Versailles, stepping up to him, said, 'I like your festival, Robespierre, but you I detest mortally.' Bourdon de l'Oise reminded him of Mirabeau's famous saying, 'the Capitol is near the Tarpeian rock;' many among the crowd muttered the word 'Tyrant' adding, 'there are still Brutuses;' and when, in the course of his speech, he said, 'It is the Great Eternal who has placed in the bosom of the oppressor the sensation of remorse and terror;' a powerful voice exclaimed, 'True! Robespierre, very true!'" – Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 18.

492

This unheard-of iniquity is stated in the report of the committee appointed to examine Robespierre's papers, of which Courtois was the reporter. It is rather a curious circumstance that, about the time of Cécile Regnault's adventure, there appeared, at a masked ball at London, a character dressed like the spectre of Charlotte Corday, come, as she said, to seek Robespierre, and inflict on him the doom of Marat. – S.

493

Mignet, tom. ii., p. 322; Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 10; Biog. Mod., tom. iii., p. 149.

494

Thiers, tom. vi., p. 291; Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 53.

495

Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 22.

496

See it in Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 23.

497

Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 30; Thiers, tom. vi., p. 273.

498

Thiers, tom. vi., p. 307.

499

Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 61.

500

"Robespierre was a fanatic, a monster, but he was incorruptible, and incapable of robbing, or of causing the deaths of others, from a desire of enriching himself. He was an enthusiast, but one who believed that he was acting right, and died not worth a sous." – Napoleon, Voice from St. Helena, vol. ii., p. 170.

501

Thiers, tom. vi., p. 328; Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 71.

502

"I know," said Henriot, "the road to the Convention." – "Go," said Robespierre, "separate the wicked from the weak; deliver the Assembly from the wretches who enthral it. March! you may yet save liberty!" – Thiers, tom. vi., p. 337.

503

Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 85.

504

Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 86.

505

Thuriot, whom Robespierre had repeatedly threatened with death.

506

Garnier de l'Aube.

507

Thiers, tom. vi., p. 344; Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 94; Mignet, tom. ii., p. 339; Toulongeon, tom. iv., p. 382; Montgaillard, tom. iv., p. 249.

508

"Young Robespierre had but recently returned from the army of Italy, whither he had been sent by the Convention on a mission. He earnestly pressed Buonaparte to accompany him to Paris. 'Had I followed young Robespierre,' said Napoleon, 'how different might have been my career. On what trivial circumstances does human fate depend!'" – Las Cases, vol. i., p. 348.

509

Baron Méda, then a simple gendarme, states, in his "Précis Historique," that it was the discharge of his pistol that broke Robespierre's jaw. – See Collection des Mémoires Rév., tom. xlii., p. 384.

510

Toulongeon, tom. iv., p. 390; Montgaillard, tom. iv., p. 257; Thiers, tom. vi., p. 360; Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 117.

511

It did not escape the minute observers of this scene, that he still held in his hand the bag which had contained the fatal pistol, and which was inscribed with the words Au grand Monarque, alluding to the sign, doubtless, of the gunsmith who sold the weapon, but singularly applicable to the high pretensions of the purchaser. – S. – See Montgaillard, tom. iv., p. 257.

512

The horsemen who escorted him showed him to the spectators with the point of their sabres. The mob stopped him before the house in which he lived; some women danced before the cart, and one of them cried out to him, "Murderer of all my kindred, thy agony fills me with joy; descend to hell, with the curses of all wives, mothers, and children!" – Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 119; Biog. Mod., vol. i., p. 179.

513

The fate of no tyrant in story was so hideous at the conclusion, excepting perhaps that of Jugurtha. – S.

514

"Couthon was born at Orsay in 1756. Before the Revolution he had been distinguished for the gentleness, as well as the integrity of his character. Owing to the malformation of his lower limbs, it was difficult to fasten him to the moving plank of the guillotine; and the executioner was at last obliged to lay him on his side to receive the blow." —Biog. Mod., vol. i., p. 309.

515

"Coffinhal was born at Aurillac in 1746. He it was who, when Lavoisier requested that his death might be delayed a fortnight, in order that he might finish some important experiments, made answer that the Republic had no need of scholars and chemists." —Biog. Univ.

516

On the very day of his arrest he had signed the warrant for putting sixty persons to death. In the confusion, no person thought of arresting the guillotine. They all suffered.

517

The following is M. Dumont's report of Robespierre's maiden speech in the National Assembly: —

"I cannot forget the occasion on which a man, who afterwards acquired a fatal celebrity, first brought himself into notice. The clergy were endeavouring, by a subterfuge, to obtain a conference of the orders; and for this purpose deputed the Archbishop of Aix to the Tiers Etat. This prelate expatiated very pathetically upon the distresses of the people, and the poverty of the country parishes. He produced a piece of black bread, which a dog would have rejected, but which the poor were obliged to eat or starve. He besought the Assembly to appoint some members to confer with those deputed by the nobility and clergy, upon the means of bettering the condition of the indigent classes. The Tiers Etat perceived the snare, but dared not openly reject the proposal, as it would render them unpopular with the lower classes. Then a deputy rose, and after professing sentiments in favour of the poor still stronger than those of the prelate, adroitly threw doubts upon the sincerity of the intentions avowed by the clergy. 'Go,' said he to the archbishop, 'and tell your colleagues, that if they are so impatient to assist the suffering poor, they had better come hither and join the friends of the people. Tell them no longer to embarrass our proceedings with affected delays; tell them no longer to endeavour, by unworthy means, to make us swerve from the resolutions we have taken; but as ministers of religion – as worthy imitators of their master – let them forego that luxury which surrounds them, and that splendour which puts indigence to the blush; – let them resume the modesty of their origin, discharge the proud lackeys by whom they are attended, sell their superb equipages, and convert all their superfluous wealth into food for the indigent.'