by Alan Schom
Napoleon summoned Josephine, and he and Joseph jointly presented the facts to her. She broke down in tears, calling it all lies. “Yes, my Hippolyte,” she immediately wrote her lover afterward, informing him of the confrontation, “I hate them all. You, alone, have my love and tender thoughts. They must see how I loathe them...see the regrets and despair I feel in not being able to see you as often as I wish...Oh! What have I done to those monsters to deserve this?” She even suggested divorcing Bonaparte, which Charles quickly discouraged.[135] Although they read her the riot act, Napoleon and Joseph lacked any written evidence or correspondence, and informed her that if she ever saw Charles alone again in his apartment (also the headquarters of the Bodin Company) or was involved in the Bodin Company’s speculations, she would suffer the consequences.
Josephine defied everyone, not only continuing her not-so-secret rendezvous with the elegant Hippolyte Charles (who now resigned from the army in order to dedicate himself full-time to his prosperous business career) but also increasing her interests in the Bodin Company. Meanwhile Napoleon, apparently partially assuaged and taken in by Josephine’s denials, instructed her to be more circumspect and a week later even bought her the house in the Rue de la Victoire. Involved night and day now with his various political and military plans, he had neither the time nor the emotion to spare for Josephine’s transgressions. But as he was to learn later that summer, when he was far from French shores, Josephine’s extramarital activities were even worse than he had imagined.[136]
Meanwhile the expedition was beginning to take shape, thanks to the energetic work of the hard-pressed Armaments Commission[137] directing all operations, aided by Treasury Comptroller Poussielgue. Although Bonaparte’s initial sailing date of April 9 had come and gone, at least his senior team was more or less complete, including most of the army commanders — Kléber at Toulon, Reynier at Marseille, Desaix at Civitavecchia, Vaubois at Ajaccio, and Menard at Genoa, with Dommartin heading the Army’s artillery, Dumas the cavalry, and Caffarelli the engineers.
On April 17 Bonaparte ordered Brueys to prepare for a revised sailing date of April 27. Yet it was not until the twenty-second that Napoleon officially confirmed the appointment of the admiral’s senior fleet officers. In reality it was sloppy, slapdash planning that only a miracle worker — a Napoleon Bonaparte — could have thrown together at the last minute and then succeeded in pulling off, though leaving a nightmare of jangled nerves for lesser human beings in the lower echelons of command.
By April 22 the countdown for launching his fabled Egyptian expedition had just a few days to go. Bonaparte, who had done everything he could at this point — and barring the unforeseen — this time expected everything to go according to schedule. Accordingly he notified Brueys from Paris: “I am leaving [for Toulon] tomorrow night. Upon my arrival I hope to find the fleet all organized.” It was a brusque, impatient missive; he would tolerate no further excuses. Ready or not the fleet would sail in five days’ time. But as so often during Bonaparte’s life, the unexpected could — and now did — occur.
News brought from Vienna on April 23 by an exhausted French dispatch rider stopped Napoleon in his tracks and stunned the French capital. It transpired that on April 13 the recently defeated Austrians had hauled down the French national flag from over the entrance of the French Embassy and torn it to shreds — the very flag that Ambassador Bernadotte had hoisted at the request of the Directory to protest an Austrian military review celebrating the raising of the army to defend the capital against General Bonaparte’s army in Styria in 1796. Since then, of course, the Austrians had been thoroughly defeated and the Peace of Campo Formio signed and ratified. It was a foolish act carried out by the emotional, patriotic Viennese, but it left Bernadotte no choice but to close the embassy in protest and leave the Habsburg capital.
The reaction in Paris was sharp and bitter. The Directory immediately ordered the transfer of army units from the Channel — already depleted by earlier transfers to the Egyptian expedition — to reinforce the French Armée de Mayence and the Armée d’Helvétie. Fear and rumors of war circulated in both the Council of Ancients and in the Bourbon Palace, where outspoken Jacobins were ready to take on the world to avenge the outrageous Austrian insult, while in the large stone courtyard of the Luxembourg Palace, special couriers came and went. In the Rue de la Victoire, General Bonaparte ordered his secretary, Bourrienne, to postpone his departure, as he contacted Foreign Minister Talleyrand, who always seemed to know more than anyone else, the Directory included. The general himself was in turn summoned urgently to the Luxembourg for consultations with the Directory, then ordered to remain ready, at its disposal.
By the following day, a special imperial Austrian diplomatic courier arrived from Vienna with a formal apology from the Austrian foreign secretary. As for the Directory, there was only relief to be seen on the faces of all, for the last thing they wanted — despite the outward fervent patriotic indignation filling the air and Jacobin hearts — was a fresh war, at least at this time. Accordingly that same day the Directory again summoned General Bonaparte, informing him that he — “Commanding General of the Army of England” — was to prepare to leave “immediately for [the Congress of] Rastadt where he is to confer with [the Austrian] minister...in order to put an end to all the difficulties existing between the House of Austria and the French Republic,” including such matters as French intervention in Rome (where the French had arrested the pope and set up a Roman Republic), Naples, Tuscany, and Switzerland. Bonaparte was then “invested with the full powers to negotiate, conclude, and sign such agreement [as] he reaches.”[138]
For Napoleon Bonaparte, it was an extraordinary, most unexpected piece of good fortune, coming out of the blue as it did, and he was quick to accept the challenge, anticipating the great prestige that would accrue to him in the event of his successfully negotiating a new, all-encompassing international accord. If there was one soldier in the whole of France the Austrians dreaded above all others, it was the tough little Corsican who had just stolen their precious holdings all across northern Italy, and the Directory — with the nudging of Talleyrand and Barras — was determined to make the most of that fear. Suddenly, one of the other balls Bonaparte had been juggling, the Egyptian expedition, was forgotten, replaced with prospects of a diplomatic coup at Rastadt. Nevertheless, Bonaparte did not discard his Egyptian expedition, instead explaining to Kléber in Toulon that he was delayed for several days. In the meantime he was handing over temporary overall command to Kléber, who was to carry on as usual and be ready to proceed as soon as he was notified. After dispatching a shorter note to Brueys, he concentrated on his new objective.
With Talleyrand’s full support at the Foreign Ministry, and as the old protégé of Barras, who had launched his military career and was still the key man in the Directory, Napoleon was naturally buoyed up, bursting with fresh enthusiasm and plans, as he rushed back and forth between the Foreign Ministry and the Luxembourg, while writing to the senior Austrian diplomat of his arrival shortly at Rastadt where, thanks to Vienna’s full apology, he anticipated a peaceful solution to their problems. All the while, however, War Minister Schérer’s orders to transfer thousands of troops to Mainz and northern Switzerland went into effect, reducing the Channel forces to a mere 47,500 men, while giving the Army of Mainz just over 50,000 men, and the Army of Helvetia 20,000. Altogether France now had an effective standing army of 208,000 ready for European service (excluding the 29,000 men thus far transferred to the Egyptian expedition, and the 86,500 troops of the Army of the Interior, dispersed and garrisoned permanently throughout France). The country was prepared for anything, and the Austrian emperor had to take heed.
Unfortunately for Bonaparte, however, he had no one to counsel caution. Gaspard Monge was not present or yet the full confidant he would become before the year was out, and apparently Foreign Minister Talleyrand could not restrain the swaggering claims of the Corsican general. The result was that in a private meeting wi
th Barras, whom for the first time he now addressed as an equal, he confidentially boasted that he would probably abandon the Egyptian expedition. Alas, he did not confine his thoughts about his private aims and aspirations to Barras and Talleyrand.
Early in May he revealed all to the Directory, haranguing them in a blatantly cocky, offensive manner as to how they — he — could take full advantage of Austria’s weakness at the bargaining table to wring sweeping new territorial concessions from their other European holdings. What is more, there should be an appropriate reward for him in the form of membership in the Directory itself. (A stunned Barras had earlier pointed out that at twenty-eight, Bonaparte was not eligible for that position, forty being the minimum age.) The directors were naturally shocked by Bonaparte’s unilateral disregard of their official instructions to him, and by his ill-disguised thirst for personal glory, not to mention his irreverent manner. They wanted peace, and no part of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Barras, as a member of the Directory and hence witness to the whole incident, related, “Bonaparte was then quite mortified to see such a splendid opportunity escape them” — that is, at Rastadt, where a strong France could impose its will on a helpless victim — and “not having been able to achieve what he wanted by ruses and devious approach, to make himself — through the Directory — dictator of the affairs of all Europe, he no longer made any attempt to conceal his scorn of them.” Foiled in this attempt, Napoleon acted like “the master dictating his wishes...[and finally] in the heat of the ensuing discussion went so far as to threaten us with his resignation from the Army altogether.” Director Rewbell, who loathed the bumptious general, immediately thrust out a pen and paper — “Citizen General, sign here!” Having clearly overstepped himself this time, a humiliated Bonaparte withdrew “in the complete silence imposed by this stinging rebuff.”[139] Following his departure, the five-man Directory reconvened, rescinding Bonaparte’s diplomatic appointment and credentials and canceling his triumphant journey to Rastadt, and then ordered Barras personally to notify the general of these decisions.
Upon reaching the Rue de la Victoire that evening, an astonished Barras found the servants carrying out trunks to a waiting coach, and inside, Bonaparte still intent on leaving for Rastadt! Their meeting lasted barely a quarter of an hour, according to Bourrienne, as the two men ensconced themselves in Bonaparte’s small study and Barras demanded the return of Bonaparte’s now invalid diplomatic passport. “Barras left first, crossing the salon, scarcely exchanging a word with Madame Bonaparte. The general reappeared after him, seeing Barras to the door. Then, without saying a word to anyone, returned to his study, slamming the door behind him.”[140]
Bonaparte dictated a quick note for Brueys, ordering him to embark the troops on May 9, while telling his old friend Gen. Maximilien Caffarelli that the Egyptian expedition was to proceed and he was leaving the next night for Toulon.[141]
This bitterly humiliating defeat, before the five most powerful men in France, was one that Bonaparte would neither forget nor forgive. He was determined to make them pay dearly. “They don’t want any part of me,” he confided to Bourrienne, just as he had done during his schooldays at Brienne. “They must be overthrown...but the time is not yet ripe...I’ve taken certain soundings...I would be standing all alone. Very well then, we will go to Egypt after all, that is where all the great opportunities for glory lie...I am going to dazzle that lot yet.”[142]
Divisional General Bonaparte set out from Paris with Josephine and Bourrienne in his heavily encumbered carriage on the night of May 3, heading for Lyons and the highway skirting the Rhône. Preoccupied with his immediate problems, he failed to notice a minor article in the Moniteur regarding the escape from prison of a troublesome POW, a young English naval captain by the name of Sir William Sidney Smith, aided by a former Ecole Militaire classmate of Napoleon, Louis de Phélippeaux, both of whom he was to encounter one day at the distant port of Acre.
Bonaparte spent the five days en route to Toulon silently brooding. But when he stepped down from the carriage at 6:00 A.M. on May 9, he was a different man. The decision had been made at last and now hardened to its reality. He was determined to succeed, ready to dazzle that lot!
Chapter Six – The Armada
‘I shall now lead you into a country where by your future deeds you will surpass even your past achievements that have already so astonished the world.’
To the Army of The Orient, Toulon, May 1798
If General Bonaparte was exhausted after traveling for nearly six days and many hundreds of miles in a jolting carriage, he did not show it, and rather than resting or accompanying Josephine and Bourrienne to the imposing stone residence overlooking the large, bustling port of Toulon that had been reserved for him and his staff, he immediately ordered an unscheduled review of three half brigades just as they were about to embark. With the vigor reflecting his renewed determination, he would drive himself as relentlessly as he did his staff, and he took military reviews, like every other aspect of his life, seriously, as he now personally inspected men, muskets, bayonets, kits, artillery pieces, limbers,[143] and caissons.
He found harbors bursting with naval and merchant shipping and activity all along the French Mediterranean coast, with troops assigned to every port between Marseilles and Villefranche, including Hyères, St.-Tropez, and Antibes.[144] Such enormous activity, in a region that was usually relatively calm, could not be concealed from the alert British and their royalist spies, and it was therefore essential to get the expedition under way as quickly as possible. The divisions at Ajaccio, Genoa, Civitavecchia, and Marseilles were attempting to get ready to sail and join the main force, and a frustrated Bonaparte had found it necessary yet again to postpone the sailing date from Toulon, rescheduled now for May 13-14.
Not even Bonaparte’s unbounded energy and determination could dispel the stack of negative — and sometimes devastating — messages and reports awaiting him at Toulon, reports even from the ruthlessly efficient Ordonnateur Najac, who informed him that he still lacked the 1,800,000 francs in back pay for the naval crews, without which they refused to sail. Where was he to get this sum? What is more, the navy alone was already short 2,049 men (excluding crews for the convoy). But if push came to shove, the enterprising Najac argued, they could always force the passengers and troops to help crew the mighty warships! To make matters worse, the logistics for the expedition had been so badly handled that there was not enough food for the troops and seamen — chiefly because of the usual lack of funds — resulting in army officers breaking into the sealed provisions, intended for use in Egypt, already stored aboard the transports. There was not even fodder for the expedition’s horses, Najac instead having to send seven hundred head over to Genoa, where others could worry about them.
The report from General Reynier at Marseilles was no more encouraging. He declared that thirteen of the vessels assigned to transport his men and goods were plagued with a variety of problems, which in the long run meant delaying the sailing time. These vessels lacked not only sufficient crews but everything from mess kits to brooms, and at least ten days’ pay to permit each soldier to buy the small personal items, such as tobacco, he would need for a long sea journey and many months of campaigning. Troops were missing basic parts of their uniforms, and some officers lacked mattresses. As for the hundreds of kegs of water just stored aboard, “they are already beginning to go bad.” What is more, Reynier’s artillery officers and cart drivers had somehow “disappeared” from the port altogether. It was a fiasco. To this was added Naval Ordonnateur Le Roy’s report at Marseilles that an additional nine vessels there (including the convoy’s two hospital ships) were in no condition to sail, all for the usual reason, “money being the thermometer of all activity,” as he put it. Meanwhile, an important senior officer upon whom Bonaparte had been counting, General Dugua, suddenly requested permission to be relieved of his command in Marseilles in order to return to Paris to serve a fresh term in the Council of Five Hundre
d, as deputy for Calvados, which Napoleon refused out of hand. Politics more important than the army?! Instead Dugua was ordered “to seize” five of the largest neutral ships he could find in port and get them over to Toulon. It was not just transport vessels, crews, food, and supplies but thousands of troops who were now found to be “missing” as well. One of the first things General Bonaparte did on the very afternoon of his arrival at Toulon was personally to order all officers and soldiers of twelve different regiments and half brigades, who for whatever reason were absent from their units, to return to the port as quickly as possible.
If the news was not exactly cheering, at least Napoleon — whose every word had to be heeded, with no Directory about to interfere — was in full charge here. He would succeed, and then he would deal with Paris. And yet in this dark hour, he did receive a most astonishing form of consolation from an unexpected quarter. The gruff General Kléber cryptically informed him that he “understood” Bonaparte’s private political ambitions and appreciated the general’s “vast genius,” which Kléber’s personal “devotion would do everything to second and see reach fruition.”
Meanwhile the French government attempted to put the British off the scent. To help explain the sudden disappearance of the much-talked-about “Minister Plenipotentiary Bonaparte” from Paris and Rastadt, as well as the obvious military preparations along the Mediterranean, they inserted in the Moniteur of May 8 the following item: