GOOD-THE FINAL GOAL OF ILL. The wish that of the living whole Are God and Nature, then, at strife, That I considering everywhere I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, ABBOTT'S NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. BY WILLIAM THOMAS HALEY. CHAPTER III. in that city, for, what does the reader think? "The majority of the inhabitants of this | city" (Toulon), "were friends of the old monarchy. Some ten thousand of the inhabitants THE allies were now considered as sent by of Marseilles, Lyons, and other parts of the Providence to deliver the Royalists, and, if not South of France, took refuge within the walls signally to avenge the murdered Louis XVI, of Toulon, and, uniting with the Royalist inat the least, to put an end to the mob govern- habitants, surrendered the city, its Magazines, ment, and to restore the old monarchy its Ships, and its Forts to the combined Engof France, with, probably, such limitations and lish and Spanish fleet, which was cruising out. ameliorations as would have rendered it side of its harbour. The English ships sailed secondary only to the British Monarchy, triumphantly into the port, landing five thouWhat could be more natural than this? What other than madmen or idiots, could we call the French Royalists, at that time gathered together in Toulon, had they thus looked upon the British and Spanish force, and what but the basest of men and most senseless of ingrates could we deem them, if thus looking upon the invading force, they had failed to give it every possible facility, every possible assistance? But, the Republican (1) Mr. Abbott sees the matter in quite a different light; he talks of the facilities given by the Royalist residents of Toulon, and their royalist brethren of the South, who had taken refuge VOL, Y.-R sand English troops, eight thousand Spaniards, Neapolitans, and Piedmontese, and took full possession of the place. This treacherous act, excited to the highest pitch the alarm and the indignation of the revolutionary government, and it was resolved that at all hazards Toulon must be retaken and the English driven from the soil of France." For deliberateness of libel, we back that against anything that we shall meet in this new biography of Napoleon; and in saying that much we say a good deal! This treacherous act! and how dares this volunteer eulogist of a great genius but still greater assuredly his own language can by no means be ma le to lead to any other inference than that of his profound ignorance of the fact, that the combined English and Spanish fleets were part and parcel of an admirable plan which failed of full and important effect, only in consequence of the grossest want of judgment on the part, alike of those who had possession of so valuable a position, and of those European sovereigns who were laudably anxious to put down the ruffians who were domineering and plundering in Paris. despot, how dare this man, propose to which he so boldly and unscrupulously transnothing for his hero had as yet no con- fers, without the slightest acknowledgement, cern with Toulon-how dares this gentleman to his own pages. If he really do comprethus cast the imputation of treachery upon hend the authors from whom he so largely the gallant men who thus made a legitimate borrows, it is difficult to understand how he and well nigh successful attempt to rescue can speak of the combined English and Spantheir country from the hands of the thieves ish fleet as though it lay off Toulon merely by and butchers who had possessed themselves of accident. We are very unwilling either to it? Does he, even in the midst of that new-misapprehend or to misrepresent him, but est specimen of Republicanism, the United States, does he, even there, dare to justify the horrible wretches, who, having butchered their king, their queen, the most illustrious of his friends, and a multitude of his subjects besides, does this gentleman dare to justify these vile wretches? and if not, how dare he call the act of the Toulonese a treacherous one? If his house was invaded, a part of his family butchered, and a portion of his property carried off, would he deem it treachery if we, or some other good Christian were to let in the police? Has he one standard of morality for public life and another for private life? Does he, like too many of his countrymen, interpret true Republicanism as meaning the right of the rabble to rob and murder, with the fewest possible obstacles, in the shape of either civil or military authority? We really should like to see a new Political Dictionary from the pen of this profound person; if he were to define all his words as he has defined this, his Dictionary would at all events be very precious as an addition to the curiosities of that other eminent Republican, Phineas Barnum Esq., now, or late the happy proprietor of Tom Thumb, two Mermaids, a bearded Lady and other rarities too numerous for the limits of an advertisement ! Of course many sensible and just men must at least see the Magazine to which Mr. Abbott has so unprovokedly contributed his at once absurd and unjust Life of Napoleon. What can such men think of his sense of right and wrong? Of his comprehension of Christian ethics? Of his understanding of the word Republicanism? Oh! may Britain ever have the hatred of such writers! But such writers shall not with impunity, even by inference, libel her, for all that! Mr. Abbott, if we may judge from his own language, does not always quite clearly comprehend the real meaning of the very passages Mr. Abbott tells us that those ruffians had "determined that, at all hazards, Toulon must be taken, and the English driven from the soil of France." We take the liberty to remind Mr. Abbott, that to operations of that kind there are two part es, and, had our peaceable occupation of Toulon been duly used, there seems to be good reason for believing that the only "determination which the revolutionary miscreants at Paris would have been able to carry into effect would have been that of saving their own recreant carcasses by timely flight, or surrendering them, helpless and unpitied, to the brutal ministerings of the professional or the amateur butchers, to whose ensanguined hands they had delivered some of the best, bravest, noblest, and loveliest of their compatriots. Had Toulon been immediately defended on the land side by such an army as could, on the very instant, and with perfect safety, have been spared, with well arranged and perfectly kept lines of communication with Lyons, Marseilles, and other loyal cities, and had such an army been promptly and powerfully support. ed by the European sovereigns, Toulon being carefully watched and guarded on the sea board by the combined fleet, strengthened by the numerous vessels found in the harbour, the frigates and lighter craft forming lines of communication with the nearest ports of England, Spain, and Italy, Napoleon Buona parte would have had exceedingly small chance spectful a distance from the shore, that, had he continued firing until doomsday, not a ball from his guns could possibly have reached its mark-the shipping; and when he agreed to fire red-hot shot at the combined fleet, he did it in a spirit of the most compassionate and least revolutionary fashion; firing from a point fully three gun shots from his mark, and having the balls made red-hot in private residences, sufficiently distant to allow of the shots becoming most innocuously cool before they reached the guns! Does it not stir of successfully directing his cannon against Toulon. We have spoken with some very eminent military and naval officers, including the well known naval writers Captain Marryatt, and his friend and literary colleague, Lieutenant Howard, and all, without a single exception, have agreed in thinking that had this plan been promptly and resolutely acted upon, the Revolution would have been at an end and the Monarchy restored. Mr. Abbott's charge against the Royalists of Toulon, and their friends, that they were one's bile to think that, with such a comguilty of Treachery, would be simply ludicr-mander opposed to them, the defenders of ous, did not the evident animus of the writer Toulon failed to annihilate his entire force? render it something still worse. If ever men It was under this singular military genius were justified in a course of action, they were, that Napoleon received the important military in placing the ports, shipping, munitions of appointment of Brigadier-general of artillery. war, and their own gallant services, at the dis- Condemning, as we do, so much in the characposal of the friendly powers who sought to ter and conduct of Napoleon, we yet are predeliver them and their beautiful country from pared to do full justice to his military genius. the hands of the Revolutionary ruffians of the His was not the eye to overlook any gross National Convention. We challenge Mr. military blunder, and he was more especially Abbott to bring forward a single argument to unlikely to overlook mistakes in artillery support his charge of Treachery. We main-practice, trained as he had been from his tain that they were fully justified; and had mere boyhood to that important arm of the the plan been properly carried out, a more service. A glance at the position of the guns admirable scheme for the deliverance of and the objects at which they were levelled, France, and the restoration of her monarchy sufficed to show him all the pitiable folly of at the smallest possible expense of either his superior officer, and he, as Scott says, blood or treasure, could not have been devis-"with difficulty," persuaded the general to ed Ah! Had the eagle eye of Wellington allow a few experimental shots. They fell been there, right little would have signified the "determination" of the black hearted and red handed ruffians of the Convention to retake Toulon! Unhappily there was no such grand and comprehensive spirit among those who had the chief part in conducting the defence of that devoted city. about half way-scarcely half way; and the besotted Cartaux coolly remarked that the aristocracy had spoiled the powder! Alas! that poor French aristocracy have been charged with many a deed of which they were quite as innocent; but to be thus made answerable for the blundering of the most incompetent fellow that ever exposed his men to be uselessly butchered, was surely "the unkindest cut of all !" Even after much precious time had been wasted—even after the precious opportunity had been postponed, if not utterly lost, of throwing out a powerful and well-supplied Napoleon seems to have acted with great army on the land side, and pouring in rein-spirit as well as ability on this occasion. He forcements and provisions to it by sea-even warmly remonstrated with his sanguinary after the most inconceivable blundering on masters of the Convention, upon the manifest the part of the defenders of Toulon-they absurdity of expecting to take such a place as still had many a fair chance of ultimate suc- Toulon by the "regular approaches" which cess presented to them by the still greater had been ordered by them, or of injuring any blundering of their revolutionary opponents, mortal, by sea or by land, with such gunThe first general sent by the Convention pointing and such shot heating as had been against Toulon was a man wholly ignorant of invented by the singular genius to whom they the duty, who erected his batteries at so re- I had entrusted the command. He advised a totally new course of procedure, of which the representatives, whom, for some bright every Life of Napoleon gives such ample de- reason of their own, the Convention insisted tails, that we need not enter into them; and, upon keeping in the army, to superintend having obtained a hesitating permission to operations which they could by no possibility manage the artillery operations after his own understand. Here again, however, though fashion, he proceeded, with his constitutional Mr. Abbott does not condescend to tell us a alacrity, to make the necessary arrangements. word about it, Napoleon was signally served Cartaux was superseded. What honest or by that Salicetti whom he had dubbed a useful trade that egregious person had de-" villain," and who undoubtedly was a regiserted, for the purpose of making himself cide. That person was one of the four repreridiculous as a general, we know not. We sentatives or commissioners of the Convention do know, however, that he was succeeded in who were at that time resident in the camp, the supreme command of the army investing and, thanks to his interference, backed by Toulon by one Doppet, an ex M.D., who, not another of his confrères, the younger Robesfinding in his original profession sufficient pierre, Napoleon found himself at full liberty scope for his natural or acquired talents for to use his unrivalled stratagetic talents unmanslaughter, aspired to dealing out death controlled by the absurd and crude fancies on a more liberal scale in the character of a of a set of civilians, who scarcely knew a linsoldier! Cartaux was merely an incurable stock from a round shot, or cannister from fool; Doppet was all that, and a coward into grape. Will Mr. Abbott tell us that Napoleon the bargain. An improvised attack on one might not have been deprived, by these abof the forts by a body of the villanous but hard-surd civilians, of the opportunity of displaying hitting young scum of Paris and the provinces, his genius and exerting his energies, had the known by the generic name of Carmagnoles, "villain" Salicetti been less placable, or had required only a strong and speedy reinforce- his hero, Napoleon, been less pliant to circumment to render it successful. That reinforce- stances? We confess to some curiosity to ment was hastening to the scene of action, know how Mr. Abbott will account for his when one of the general's aides-de-camp was rather singular omission of all mention of so shot so close by him, as greatly to discompose striking and important a circumstance. the nerves of the commander; "on which," says Scott, dryly, "the medical general, considering this to be a decidedly bad symptom, pronounced the case desperate, and, to Napoleon's great indignation, ordered a retreat." The medical general, after such a display as this, was, of course, superseded, and was succeeded by a brave veteran, named Dugoummier, who was among the very last men in the world to give the besieged the chances already afforded to them by the incapacity of one general and the dastardy of another. The result of the siege is, unhappily, but too well known. The vigorous measures of Napoleon, who did infinitely more towards the success of the French arms than his general, gallant as the latter beyond all question was, delivered Toulon up to the savages of the revolutionary party, and although the English shipping saved a large number of the gallant Royalists, a frightful massacre was committed upon those who were unable to make their escape. Though the Representatives of the Convention seem to have taken ample care of their own persons while the fight still raged, and the event was still uncertain, they lauded themselves not a little in their report to the Convention, and had the additional and ineffible meanness entirely to omit in that report all mention of Napoleon, to whose skill the success of the revolutionary troops may without much exaggeration be said to have But though Napoleon had the fullest con- been entirely owing. In consequence of this currence and the most active support of his infamous conduct, Napoleon remained for a general, he at first found himself considerably considerable time without active employment. embarrassed by the stupid intermeddling of The Jacobins, moreover, whose views he was Napoleon's new commander was precisely the man to comprehend the true science, of all that he proposed, and he not merely permitted him to carry his plans into effect, but as heartily as fearlessly, prepared to aid him in doing so; and the besieged speedily perceived that they no longer had to deal with either fools or cowards. known to have favoured, were now, in any-Change after change was made in the governthing but good odour, and though the ultra-mental arrangements; each new arrangement Republican opinions of which he had hitherto was at first hailed with popular applause, and made such loud profession, were evidently speedily consigned to destruction amidst popuanything but his real opinions, they now lar violence or popular contempt. threatened to be as fatal to his prospects of In the year 3 of the "Republic one and employment and advancement, as he had indivisible," ie. in the year of Grace 1795, reckoned upon their being favourable. His own another change occurred; which, made the fiery temper, too, just now gave an inopportune government consist of Five Directors, (the flash, and for the time, deprived him of a real executive power,) a council of Five Hunfair chance of obtaining, in spite of all the dred, answering to the British House of advantages of his position, the employment Commons, and a council of Ancients similarly which he so ardently desired. Being removed answering to the House of Lords. Though from his favourite arm of the service, the there were some by no means trifling defects artillery, into the infantry of the line, he in this new constitution, though it ought to warmly remonstrated with the board of gene- have been evident to its framers, that the ral officers, and demanded, rather than soli- whole of the power of the Directory was cited, the kind of command for which he justly pretty sure to be in reality in the hands of deemed himself pre-eminently qualified. Gene- any one of the Directors who should chance ral Aubry, the President of the Board, to be greatly superior in talents and energy remarked upon Napoleon's youth as being a to his colleagues, still, this constitution really disqualification for the command that he did promise as near a restoration of public sought, and Napoleon, in the sarcastic tone of order and individual security as could be which he was even at that early age so perfect hoped for from any measure short of the a master, replied that service in the field was restoration of the monarchy. of somewhat more importance than age. The But though the constitution of the year & arrow went home to its mark, for Aubry was (1795) really had the merit of promising one of those generals who had never seen a something like peace and security to the harshot fired in anger, and who knew a little of assed people of France, it was on that very everything, except soldiering. But, if his account looked upon with detestation by two sarcasm had the effect of stinging his oppo- very opposite parties, and from motives nent, it also, as is mostly the case, had the equally opposite. The royalists, naturally effect of injuring himself, and he remained and even laudably, felt unwilling to sanction without employment. But it was no longer any arrangement which, however just and depossible for the coldness or even the active sirable in other respects, might tend to give enmity of officials permanently to keep down | permanence to revolutionary power. To the the proud young Corsican. The brave old royalists, the restoration of the monarchy, general was loud in his praise, and all the with or even without the condign punishment soldiers worthy of the name praised him, too, of the surviving ring leaders of the revoluas only brave soldiers can praise the chieftains tionary miscreants, was the one only change whose worth they discern, where alone it can that seemed desirable or even endurable. On be discerned and appreciated-amid the strife the other hand, the Jacobin party hated, with and in the doubtful hours of the battle or the a rancour scarcely less than that which they siege. It needed only a great crisis to ensure felt towards monarchy itself, a constitution the employment of the unscrupulous and which held out a prospect of protection to the skilful artillery officer, and that crisis speedily weak, and of repression or punishment to the presented itself. evil disposed and the sanguinary. In the rural districts, with their scattered population, this hostility was less felt, or, at the least less strongly manifested; but in Paris, the abode or the resort of all that was desperate and daring, the publication of this new constitution caused an awful outburst of mingled It is, as all history proves, far more easy to pull down than to build up; to destroy an old form of government by the seemingly unanimous consent of a whole people, than to establish a new one calculated to obtain the favour and cordial support of that people. |