Napoleon Bonaparte

by Alan Schom

  It was during this seventeen-month mission that Monge met the victorious commander in chief of the Army of Italy, General Bonaparte, for the second time. (The first time had been back in August 1792 when a newly promoted Captain Bonaparte, temporarily finding his career blocked, had sought an interview with Naval Minister Monge, requesting a place as an artillery officer with the French avy. Although favorably impressed by the young man, nothing had come of it by the time Monge resigned in April 1793.)[159] Meeting in Milan on June 7, 1796, Monge and Bonaparte took an immediate liking to each other and quickly became fast friends. Monge, who was with the victorious General Bonaparte when he signed an armistice with the pope on June 23 of that same year, received an open invitation to Montebello, and became a frequent visitor there. When his government mission in Venice was completed in August 1797 he stopped at Passeriano to take his leave of Bonaparte. The general would not hear of his abandoning him prior to the signing of the peace treaty with the Austrians, eventually persuading him to postpone his departure for several weeks.

  It was during those leisurely weeks at Passeriano that Napoleon privately aired his various possible projects for the future. One in particular appealed to him: an expedition to Egypt. The general returned to it, giving it much more weight and consideration, and Monge promised to gather further documentation himself.

  Their friendship now bound securely, the two men became virtually inseparable until the signing of the Treaty of Campo Formio, and on October 18 Napoleon entrusted him and Berthier with the original copy of that treaty to deliver personally to the Directory. Back in Paris as a senior influential member of the Institut de France, Monge — still enthralled by this extraordinary new relationship with Bonaparte — arranged for General Bonaparte’s election to that distinguished body of savants that December.

  From Malta onward, where Monge transferred to the Orient, he spent more time with the commander in chief than anyone else aboard ship with the exception of Bourrienne. “Monge was invariably at his table,” Bourrienne recalled. “This scholar, who had such a lively spirit, shared many of the same views as the commanding general, and with his stimulating mind roused Bonaparte’s own lively imagination all the more.”[160] But what Bourrienne — or indeed anyone else for that matter — did not yet quite grasp was the extent to which Monge had influenced Bonaparte’s decisions, in particular at this stage regarding the Egyptian enterprise, although of course he had seen the numerous charts, statistics, learned articles, and maps on Egypt that Monge had earlier passed on to him.

  Thus was cemented the unlikely friendship of the professional soldier and the civilian scientist that had developed during the peace negotiations a year earlier. Monge was to remain Napoleon’s friend and confidant in all the years to follow — a man Bonaparte always trusted and relied on and who offered that unusual combination he sought — personal disinterestedness, integrity, and a sense of adventure in challenging the unknown. Monge was a rare hybrid of the practical mathematician (who based everything on balanced equations and mathematical proofs) and the dreamer. His lively imagination permitted fancy and theory to lead him to fresh, uncharted horizons, and like Napoleon, with a total disregard of the individuals around him. Curiously, it was Bourrienne who quite unconsciously put his finger on a real clue to one aspect of their relationship, when he remarked during the sea journey to Egypt on Bonaparte’s “preference for those who cleverly defended an absurd proposition, as opposed to those who simply applied reason and sheer logic to do so.”

  Naturally only such an individual could possibly have come up with, and justified, a major military expedition to the far end of the Mediterranean — to a country about which, in the final analysis, Bonaparte knew almost nothing.

  Life aboard ship involved long hours drawing up orders and plans for the army, Malta, and Egypt, but there also was much free time for conversation. If there was one thing Bonaparte could not abide, it was boredom and inactivity. As Bourrienne related, “French foreign policy and politics were frequent subjects of discussion, but he especially liked to talk about the acclaim his latest campaign was receiving” — that is, when he was not incapacitated by seasickness.

  Among those nightly at table when these discussions took place, in addition to Monge, were Berthollet, Brueys, Ganteaume, Caffarelli, and other senior officers, and Bonaparte never seemed to rest, his brain teeming with new questions and proposals. He continually coaxed information out of his shipmates with practical, mundane questions, whether on politics or army campaigns. Then, sated, he would turn to religious ideas, or “whether the planets were inhabited,” or the age of the world, or the probability or inevitability of the destruction of the planet Earth by water or fire. He was also fascinated by the interpretation of dreams.

  But with all divisions of the convoy at sea and events apparently dead on course, General Bonaparte now had some serious realities and anxieties to face alone, regarding the fate of his massive flotilla and the success or failure it could bring to his magical scheme of things. In particular the haunting possibility of a full-scale naval attack by the English was never far from Napoleon’s mind, nor perhaps had he forgotten Admiral Brueys’s prognostication back in April about the French naval fleet’s fate in the event of such a confrontation, when he had declared that the campaign they were about to undertake “would prove decisive” for them.

  To be sure, neither Brueys nor Bonaparte yet knew that Admiral Nelson’s embryonic new fleet, which had swept through the Gut of Gibraltar on May 9 to oppose the French presence at Toulon, in fact involved only a few ships.[161] Although Nelson had been dispatched to the Mediterranean for the purpose of destroying the French fleet, the English rear admiral learned only while off the coast of Cartagena on May 28 that the French had already put to sea for an unknown destination, leaving the two navies already more than eight hundred miles apart.[162]

  On June 2 Admiral Brueys’s worst fears seemed realized, when the French sighted a distant “English vessel” that they believed to be the vanguard of the entire English Mediterranean fleet. Brueys quickly ordered four seventy-four-gun vessels and three frigates to reconnoiter the sea lanes before them.[163]

  Fearful lest any part of the convoy fall prey to the seemingly ubiquitous English, Brueys urged Rear Admiral Blanquet to reach Malta as quickly as possible, and he signaled the three divisions of warships to form a single line of battle. At the same time Brueys ordered Rear Admiral Decrès to leave the convoy with his three frigates and proceed to Malta to blockade the port of Valletta, in preparation for his arrival.[164]

  Bonaparte’s other immediate preoccupation as the armada left the waters of Sicily behind was the seizure of Malta itself. It had to be accomplished within a few days of arrival, otherwise he risked tying up his entire force in a long siege — thereby permitting the Maltese to call on the British fleet for help — which in turn would postpone, perhaps permanently, the expedition toward its primary objective, the Ottoman province of Egypt.

  The Order of the Knights Hospitalers of Saint John of Jerusalem, or, in more popular parlance, the Knights of Malta, had been recognized as a religious order of Crusaders by Pope Paschal II in 1113. When they lost Jerusalem to the Mameluke sultan Saladin in 1187, they found a new home on the strategically situated island of Rhodes, that is, until the arrival of the Ottoman Turks in the Middle East, when their powerful sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, captured that island in 1522. By 1530, however, Habsburg Emperor Karl IV had found a new refuge for the knights, on the island of Malta, where they built an immense bastion of sprawling stone walls, protected by hundreds of cannon. When in 1565 Suleiman had attacked the knights there as well, he soon discovered the error of his ways. Although the Turks surrounded the fortress at Valletta and the entire island with hundreds of vessels and many tens of thousands of troops, after a continuous 233-day attack they had been forced to lift this fruitless siege, leaving behind some thirty thousand dead Turkish troops.

  More recently Czar Paul I, hoping to pla
y an active role in the Mediterranean for the first time, took the knights under Russia’s protection, sponsoring a German general, Baron Hompesch, as their new grand master in July 1797.

  In December 1797 Napoleon in turn had sent a couple of his own emissaries (with a coffer of gold) to Malta, well in advance of any authorization by the Directory of an expedition. The envoy, Treasury Comptroller Emile Poussielgue, and the Maltese spy accompanying him, gathered military intelligence on the layout of the fort and the number of troops, artillery, munitions, supplies, including information on the financial position of the knights. In addition a successful Poussielgue managed to win over — no doubt through substantial bribes — two Frenchmen, the treasurer of the order and the commissioner for fortification. Leaving Malta on March 3, Poussielgue had brought a most complete and favorable report to Bonaparte in Paris.

  Despite the several miles of impressive battlements, whose detailed plans he had obtained, the very walls that had defied Suleiman’s massive siege cannon for eight months were now, two centuries later, manned by a mere ten thousand Maltese militia (called up in emergencies only), mostly untrained civilians long unaccustomed to any military activity. In reality it turned out there was only a permanent fifteen-hundred-man native garrison to man both the walls and the nine hundred or so ancient cannon (most of which had not been fired in living memory), while the whole of this garrison was officered by 332 knights — fifty of them elderly — leaving only 272 on the active list, of whom 200 were in fact French. Given this background and the hefty bribes accepted, now in June 1798 Napoleon naturally expected little difficulty in the capture of the island fortress.[165]

  On June 8, Admiral Brueys’s armada finally caught sight of Malta, where they found Desaix’s flotilla from Civitavecchia awaiting them, along with Decrès’s frigate escort. The next day the combined force, now totaling 365 sail, dropped anchor off Valletta, after twenty-one days at sea.[166]

  Needless to say, fear gripped the Maltese when they awoke on June 9 to find the Mediterranean before their ancient port covered as far as the eye could see with French ships, “a floating forest” of masts and sail. But senior French naval officers were, for their part, just as anxious, as their telescopes focused on the seemingly impregnable coast that Admiral Blanquet described as “bristling with fortifications...defending both the port and the city from all sides.”[167]

  Bonaparte, with orders to seize the island but wishing to avoid the appearance of “the conqueror,” signaled the port officer at Valletta, requesting permission to enter with the entire fleet to obtain fresh water. By ten o’clock that same morning he had his reply that only four ships would be allowed in at a time. That was fine. “A real pretext, no matter what, was needed” in order to attack them. General Desaix was immediately ordered aboard the Orient to consult with the commander in chief. “The dispositions have been taken to attack the island by military force,” General Belliard recorded, and “the little man” — as he scathingly referred to Bonaparte — explained the role each was to play.[168] Desaix’s division was to occupy the southeastern end of the island, General Vaubois’s Corsican troops to land to the north, near the city of Valletta, Gen. Baraguey d’Hillier’s Genoese division to land at the extreme southern end of the island, while Reynier’s Marseilles division was to secure the smaller island of Gozo, just to the northwest.[169]

  But first Bonaparte — ever with an eye to public opinion, and history — had one final legality to dispose of. On June 10 he duly ordered the French consul at Malta to deliver an official note of protest to the grand master of the Order of Knights, that the fleet had the right to enter a neutral port for water and that “Commander in Chief Bonaparte is most indignant” as a result of the negative reply he had just received. What is more, he was familiar with “the marked preference accorded English vessels, and with the proclamation made by the predecessor of Your Eminence [back in 1793, in which he had declined to recognize the new French Republic].” Bonaparte was therefore “resolved to take by force what ought to have been accorded by right...and I foresee the impossibility on your part of being able to prevent it.”[170]

  In fact the arrival of the fleet had not come as a surprise to the grand master, who had been informed of the situation in mid-May by a special dispatch from an Austrian diplomat at Rastadt. “I am writing to warn you, Monseigneur,” the message began, “that the considerable expedition being prepared at Toulon is intended against Malta and Egypt...You will surely be attacked, [but] if you surrender without defending yourselves, you will be dishonored in the eyes of all Europe,” and therefore receive no outside support.[171]

  To be sure, the French faced, among others, three principal forts controlling the entrance to the Valletta harbor, but with thousands of yards of battlements to defend and only the reduced actual force of 1,772 with which to man both them and the more than nine hundred cannon, mortars, and howitzers on the ramparts, Bonaparte was not seriously worried. He gave the signal for the attack to commence.

  Once again he was proved correct. Less than twenty-four hours after the opening of hostilities a Maltese spokesman appeared, at 9:00 A.M. on June 11 “requesting a suspension of arms.” Quickly accepted by the French, by ten o’clock that evening a delegation of six Maltese plenipotentaries arrived aboard the Orient, and after a minimal few hours of facesaving haggling, at three o’clock in the morning they duly signed the surrender, ceding Malta to the French Republic. The cost of the invasion to the French included three killed and half a dozen wounded, the Maltese losing “several men” as well as seven hundred prisoners.

  In the “convention” signed on board the Orient, the “Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem...renounced all rights of sovereignty and property to the islands of Malta, Gozo, and Comino in favor of the French Republic.” In return France promised to “use its influence” at the Congress of Rastadt to obtain for the grand master “an appropriate principality” somewhere in the German states (which was never done) and a three-hundred-thousand-franc pension, while the other knights were promised annual pensions of seven hundred francs apiece, though the two hundred French knights were also permitted to return to France. The promises were made, but the pensions were never delivered.

  Barely waiting for the document of capitulation to be signed, Napoleon Bonaparte immediately released his triumphant Order of the Day to the French Army on June 13: “The Army is hereby notified that the enemy has surrendered! The standard of liberty floats over the forts of Malta.” The twenty-eight-year-old general, who the year before had returned to France with the Treaty of Campo Formio and the capitulation of the Habsburg emperor, had carried out his second phenomenal coup within eight months. He had every reason to be pleased with himself: All was going just as planned.

  The swift and more or less bloodless occupation of the land now began, involving a thorough French reorganization of the country’s administration, including the judicial and religious institutions (priests were thereafter to be paid by the state, not the church). And simultaneously with the bestowal of French freedom began the inevitable looting, including confiscation of all the public and private property belonging to the Knights of Malta and their order, not to mention numerous churches.

  With the ink barely dry on the new treaty, on June 13 Bonaparte named “Citizen Berthollet” acting comptroller of the army, ordering him “to seize the gold, silver, and precious stones” — the vast celebrated treasure of the Knights of Malta accumulated since the twelfth century — located in the vaults of the Church of Saint John. Before dusk had fallen, the first cartloads of strongboxes were on their way to the harbor of Valletta and the hold of the Orient. The French Republic had struck another blow for democracy.

  Ultimately, and officially, Bonaparte notified the Directory that the loot taken from that church totaled 1,019,051 francs in gold and silver, with another 127,144 francs’ worth of the same taken from the grand master’s palace, while lesser amounts were taken from the Church of Saint Anthony, among ot
hers. Bonaparte claimed he was leaving nearly a million francs’ worth of treasure behind “to cover garrison costs.” In fact, however, the sums seized in gold, silver, precious gems, statuary, and art objects — taken from private estates as well as from public buildings — totaled some seven million francs, five million of it in gold and another million in silver plate. This was suppressed in the official accounts rendered to Paris; Bonaparte and his generals had simply helped themselves.[172] As for the exact amount Napoleon got, Bourrienne remained loyally silent, merely noting that the Maltese treasure was taken abroad the Orient and stored next to the three million francs seized earlier from the Swiss treasury in Bern.[173]

  Under normal circumstances the conquest of Malta might have been enough to have returned General Bonaparte to Paris covered in glory once more. With Egypt as his main objective, however, he treated Malta as so incidental in the larger scheme of things that he longed to get away, rushing almost nonstop through the decrees, orders, decisions, and appointments he was drawing up over the next few days. As if to emphasize this, he remained aboard the Orient at night, going ashore only as required by immediate affairs. Included in the business of the day was the general’s orders to the Knights of Malta to prepare a new treaty with Russia, which — like the Knights themselves — would now also lose any and all claim to the island. “The Russian Emperor,” Napoleon informed the Directory on June 17, “ought to thank us now, since our occupation of Malta is saving his treasury 400,000 rubles [a year] in subsidies.”

  General Bonaparte was rushing at this mad pace largely through fear of being caught there or else at sea en route to Egypt by Nelson’s Mediterranean fleet. The French expeditionary force was told “to hold themselves ready to be able to sail at a moment’s notice.” And while they were being issued new, lighter cotton uniforms, the fleet and convoy were taking on fresh water, vegetables, food, and firewood, as well as more hay for the horses, while making room for some four hundred Maltese sheep. By the evening of June 18, then, the Knights of Malta had left the island — except those few electing to join the French expedition, and some 350 Maltese as well.