Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume II

478

Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 87.

479

Thibaudeau, tom. i., p. 38; Montgaillard, tom. v., p. 267; Thiers, tom. x., p. 380; Lacretelle, tom. xiv., p. 424; Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 92.

480

"So late as two o'clock in the afternoon, the place assigned to the Council of Five Hundred was not ready. This delay of a few hours was very unfortunate. The deputies formed themselves into groups in the garden; their minds grew heated; they sounded one another, interchanged declarations of the state of their feelings, and organized their opposition." – Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 89.

481

"The Corsican Arena approached the general, and shook him violently by the collar of his coat. It has been supposed, but without reason, that he had a poniard to kill him." – Mad. de Staël, tom. ii., p 239.

482

"In the confusion, one of them, named Thomé, was slightly wounded by the thrust of a dagger, and the clothes of another were cut through." – Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 95.

483

Lacretelle, tom. xiv., p. 428; Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 91.

484

The Moniteur is anxious to exculpate Augereau from having taken any part in favour of the routed party on the nineteenth Brumaire. That officer, it says, did not join in the general oath of fidelity to the Constitution of the year Three. The same official paper adds, that on the evening of the nineteenth, being invited by some of the leading persons of the democratic faction, to take the military command of their partisans, he had asked them by way of reply, "Whether they supposed he would tarnish the reputation he had acquired in the army, by taking command of wretches like them?" Augereau, it may be remembered, was the general who was sent by Buonaparte to Paris to act as military chief on the part of the Directory in the revolution of the 18th Fructidor, in which the soldiery had willingly followed him. Buonaparte was probably well pleased to keep a man of his military reputation and resolved character out of the combat if possible. – S.

485

Thibaudeau, tom. i., p. 56; Lacretelle, tom. xv., p. 430; Thiers, tom. x., p. 385; Montgaillard, tom. v., p. 271.

486

Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 97.

487

"I have heard some of Arena's countrymen declare that he was incapable of attempting so rash an act. The contrary opinion was, however, so prevalent, that he was obliged to retire to Leghorn, where he made an appeal to the justice of the first consul; who gave him no reply: but I never heard him say that he had noticed the attitude attributed to Arena." – Savary, tom. i., p. 154.

488

"Metaphysicians have disputed, and will long dispute, whether we did not violate the laws, and whether we were not criminal; but these are mere abstractions, at best fit for books and tribunes, and which ought to disappear before imperious necessity: one might as well blame a sailor for waste and destruction, when he cuts away his masts to avoid being overset. The fact is, that had it not been for us the country must have been lost; and we saved it. The authors and chief agents of that memorable state transaction may, and ought, instead of denials or justifications, to answer their accusers proudly, like the Romans, 'We protest that we have saved our country, come with us and return thanks to the gods.'" – Napoleon, Las Cases, tom. iv., p. 331.

489

"Siêyes, during the most critical moments, had remained in his carriage at the gate of St. Cloud, ready to follow the march of the troops. His conduct during the danger was becoming: he evinced coolness, resolution, and intrepidity." – Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 100.

490

Gourgaud, tom. i., p 120.

491

Subsequently Duke of Gaëta, who had long occupied the place of chief clerk of finance. "He was a man of mild manners, and of inflexible probity; proceeding slowly, but surely. He never had to withdraw any of his measures, because his knowledge was practical and the fruit of long experience." – Napoleon, Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 109.

492

"In returning from Egypt, Napoleon had conversed a few minutes at Valence with Spina, the Pope's almoner: he then learnt that no funeral honours had been paid to the Pope, and that his corpse was laid in the sacristy of the cathedral. A decree of the consuls ordered that the customary honours should be rendered to his remains, and that a monument of marble should be raised upon his tomb." – Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 124.

493

Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 125.

494

After the 18th Brumaire, Dubois de Crancé withdrew into Champagne. He died in June 1814.

495

Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 108.

496

Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 137.

497

The Senate of Hamburgh lost no time in addressing a long letter to Napoleon, to testify their repentance. He replied to them thus: – "I have received your letter, gentlemen; it does not justify you. Courage and virtue are the preservers of states; cowardice and crime are their ruin. You have violated the laws of hospitality, a thing which never happened among the most savage hordes of the Desert. Your fellow-citizens will for ever reproach you with it. The two unfortunate men whom you have given up, die with glory; but their blood will bring more evil upon their persecutors than it would be in the power of an army to do." A solemn deputation from the Senate arrived at the Tuileries to make public apologies to Napoleon. He again testified his indignation, and when the envoys urged their weakness, he said to them, "Well! and had you not the resource of weak states? was it not in your power to let them escape?" – Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 128; Thibaudeau, tom. i., p. 169.

498

Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 107; Fouché, tom. i., p. 128.

499

Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 140.

500

The committee met in Napoleon's apartment, from nine in the evening until three in the morning. – Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 141.

501

"Siêyes affected silence. I was commissioned to penetrate his mystery. I employed Réal, who, using much address with an appearance of great good-nature, discovered the basis of Siêyes's project, by getting Chenier, one of his confidants, to chatter, upon rising from dinner, at which wines and other intoxicating liquors had not been spared. Upon this information, a secret council was held, at which the conduct to be pursued by Buonaparte in the general conferences was discussed." – Fouché, tom. i., p. 138.

502

"Napoleon now began, he said, to laugh in Siêyes's face, and to cut up all his metaphysical nonsense without mercy. 'You take,' he said, 'the abuse for the principle, the shadow for the body. And how can you imagine, M. Siêyes, that a man of any talent, or the least honour, will resign himself to act the part of a pig fattening on a few millions.' After this sally, which made those who were present laugh immoderately, Siêyes remained overwhelmed." – Napoleon, Las Cases, tom, iv., p. 335.