The Mediterranean coast of France being almost at the mercy of the English fleet, Napoleon was sent, immediately after the fall of Toulon, to inspect the defences and put them into proper condition. He threw into this task the same activity and thoroughness which had marked him at Toulon, and in a short while the coast and the coasting trade were secure from attack.

His duties carried him to Marseilles, where he found that a fortress necessary to the defence of the harbor and town had been dismantled by the patriots, who detested it as a local Bastille. Napoleon advised that the fortifications be restored “so as to command the town.” This raised a storm. The Marseilles Jacobins denounced Bonaparte to the Convention. By that body he was summoned to appear at its bar. He had no inclination to take such a risk, and hastened to Toulon, where he put himself under the protection of Salicetti and Augustin Robespierre. At their instance he wrote to the Paris authorities an exculpatory letter, and the storm blew over.

In March, 1794, Napoleon returned to headquarters at Nice. By his influence over the Commissioners of the Convention, young Robespierre in particular, he became the dominant spirit of the army of Italy.

General Dumerbion, commander-in-chief, a capable officer but too old, had been wasting time, or the strength of his troops, for several months, in attacks upon the enemy (Piedmontese and Austrians) who were intrenched at the foot of the maritime Alps. Despondent after repeated failures, officers and men were contenting themselves with holding their positions, and conducting such operations as were consistent with extreme prudence. Napoleon had no sooner made a careful study of the positions of the opposing forces, than he drew up a plan of campaign, and submitted it to the commander-in-chief and the Commissioners. In a council of war it was discussed and approved. Early in April, the army was in motion; the position of the enemy was to be turned. MassÉna led the corps which was to do what fighting was necessary. The enemy was beaten in two engagements, and Piedmont entered by the victorious French, who then turned back toward the Alps. The communications between Piedmont and the fortified camps of the enemy being thus endangered, they abandoned them without a fight; and thus in a campaign of a month the French won command of the whole range of the Alps, which had so long resisted every attack in front.

At this time the Bonaparte family was living in Nice, and Napoleon, during the months of May and June, 1794, spent much of his time with his mother and sisters. Uncle Fesch, Joseph, and Lucien were in good positions; and Napoleon secured for Louis, by the telling of some falsehoods and the use of the influence of Salicetti, the rank of lieutenant in the army. Louis was represented as having served as a volunteer at Toulon, and as having been wounded there. As a matter of fact, Louis had visited Napoleon during the siege, but had not served, and had not been wounded. Joseph Bonaparte was made war commissioner of the first class. Napoleon, in securing him the place, represented Joseph as being the holder of the commission of lieutenant colonel of Corsican volunteers, the commission which Napoleon had won for himself at such a cost in his native land. The fraud was discovered later on; but, for the present, his brother Joseph was snugly berthed.

In July, 1794, Napoleon went to Genoa on a twofold mission. That republic, which was wholly controlled by a few rich families, had been giving aid and comfort to the enemies of republican France. The English and the Austrians had been allowed to violate Genoa’s neutrality. Also, the English had been permitted to set up an establishment for the manufacture of counterfeit assignats—that peculiar policy of the British ministry which had been used with good effect against the revolted American colonies. Besides, there was a complaint that certain stores bought from Genoa, and paid for, had not been delivered to the French.

Ostensibly, therefore, Napoleon’s mission was about the stores which Genoa withheld, and about the neutrality which she was allowing to be violated. But within this purpose lay another. Genoa, and her neutrality was an obstacle to French military plans; she was weak, and the temptation to seize upon her was strong. Napoleon while at Genoa was to look about him with the keen eyes of a military expert, and to form an opinion as to the ease with which the little republic could be made the victim of a sudden spring.

This mission, which bears an unpleasant resemblance to that of a spy, was undertaken at the instance of the younger Robespierre. Salicetti and Albitte had not been consulted, and knew nothing of the secret instructions given to Napoleon. Suddenly recalled to Paris by his brother, Robespierre wished to take with him the young officer whose “transcendent merit” he had applauded. With Napoleon to command the Paris troops, instead of Henriot, the Robespierres might confidently expect victory in the crisis they saw coming. But it was a part of Napoleon’s “transcendent merit” to possess excellent judgment, and he declined to go to Paris. So the friends parted: the one to visit little Genoa and bully its feeble Doge, the other to return to the raging capital and to meet sudden death there in generous devotion to his brother.

Napoleon reached Nice again, July 21, 1794, after his successful mission to Genoa, and in a few days later came the crash. The Robespierres were overthrown, and the Bonapartes, classed with that faction, fell with it. Napoleon was put under arrest; his brothers thrown out of employment. For some reason Salicetti and Albitte, previously so friendly to Napoleon, had turned upon him, had denounced him to the Convention, and had signed the order of arrest—an order almost equivalent to a death warrant.

It was a stunning, unexpected blow. Madame Junot, in her Memoirs, hints that the traditional woman was at the bottom of it; that the younger man, Napoleon, had found favor in the eyes of a lady who looked coldly upon the suit of Salicetti. But this explanation does not explain the hostility of other commissioners, for members of two separate commissioners signed against Napoleon. Surely he had not cut them all off from the smiles of their ladies. No; it would seem that Napoleon owed his tumble to the fact that he was standing upon the Robespierre scaffolding when it fell. He merely fell with it.

He was known as a Robespierre man, and to a very great extent he was. He had been put under heavy obligations by the younger brother whom he liked, and he did not believe that the elder was at heart a bad man. He had seen private letters which the elder brother had written to the younger, in which letters the crimes of the more rabid and corrupt revolutionists were deplored, and the necessity for moderation and purity expressed. Among those who befouled the names of the Robespierres, either then or afterward, Napoleon is not to be found. He understood well enough that the convulsion of July 27, 1794 (Thermidor), was the work of a gang of scoundrels (Barras, FouchÉ, Carrier, Tallien, Billaud, Collot), who took advantage of circumstances to pull down a man who had threatened to punish them for their crimes. Napoleon believed then and afterward that Robespierre had been a scapegoat, and that he had not been responsible for the awful days of the Terror in June and July 1794. The manly constancy with which he always clung to his own estimates of men and events is shown by the way in which he spoke well of the Robespierre brothers when all others damned them, and by his granting Charlotte Robespierre a pension at a time when the act could not have been one of policy. Marvellous was the complexity of Napoleon’s character; but like a thread of gold runs through all the tangled warp and woof of his life the splendid loyalty with which he remembered those who had ever been kind to him. Not once did he ever pursue a foe and take revenge so far as I can discover; not once did he ever fail to reward a friend, so far as the record is known.

Napoleon’s arrest created such indignation among the young officers of the army of Italy that a scheme for his forcible release was broached. Junot, Marmont, and other ardent friends were to take him out of prison and flee with him into Genoese territory. Napoleon would not hear of it. “Do nothing,” he wrote Junot. “You would only compromise me.”

Junot the hot-headed, Junot the tender-hearted, was beside himself with grief; and he wept like a child as he told the bad news to Madame Letitia.

But Napoleon himself was not idle. He knew that to be sent to Paris for trial at that time was almost like going to the scaffold, and he made his appeal directly to the Commissioners. By name he addressed Salicetti and Albitte, in words manly, bold, and passionate, protesting against the wrong done him, demanding that they investigate the case, and appealing to his past record and services for proofs of his republican loyalty. This protest had its effect. Salicetti himself examined Napoleon’s papers, and found nothing against him. The suspicious trip to Genoa was no longer suspicious, for his official instructions for that trip were found.

After an imprisonment of about two weeks, he was released, but his employment was gone. He still held his rank in the army, but he was not on duty. It was only as an adviser and spectator that he remained, and, at the request of Dumerbion, furnished a plan of campaign, which was successful to the extent that Dumerbion pushed it. He did not push it far enough to gain any very solid advantages, much to Napoleon’s disgust. It was at this time that the incident occurred which he related at St. Helena. He was taking a stroll with the wife of the influential Commissioner Turreau, when it occurred to him to divert and interest her by giving her an illustration of what war was like. Accordingly he gave orders to a French outpost to attack the Austrian pickets. It was a mere whim; the attack could not lead to anything. It was done merely to entertain a lady friend. The soldiers could but obey orders. The attack was made and resisted. There was a little battle, and there were soldiers wounded, there were soldiers killed. And the entertainment which the lady got out of it was the sole other result of the attack.

It was Napoleon who told this story on himself: he declared that he had never ceased to regret the occurrence.

Corsican affairs now claimed attention for a moment in the counsels of the government at Paris (September, 1794). For after the Bonapartes had fled the island, Paoli had called the English in. The old hero intended that there should be a protectorate, thought that England would be satisfied with an arrangement of that sort, and that he, Paoli, would be left in control as viceroy or something of the kind. But the English had no idea of putting forth their strength for any such halfway purpose. They intended that Corsica should belong to England, and that an English governor should rule it. They intrigued with Paoli’s stanch friend, Pozzo di Borgo, and Pozzo became a convert to the English policy. King George III. of England wrote Paoli a polite and pressing invitation to visit England, and Paoli accepted.

England bombarded and took the remaining French strongholds (February, 1794), went into quiet and peaceable possession of the island, and appointed Sir Gilbert Elliott, governor. Of course Paoli’s stanch friend, Pozzo di Borgo, was not forgotten; he was made president of the state council under Elliott.

When commissioners from Paris came to the headquarters of the army of Italy, instructed to suspend the operations of the army and to prepare for an expedition against Corsica, Napoleon saw an opportunity to get back into active service again. He sought and obtained, perhaps by the favor of Salicetti, command of the artillery for the expedition. Great preparations were made at Toulon to organize the forces and to equip the fleet. In this work Napoleon was intensely engaged for several months. His mother and the younger children took up their residence in pleasant quarters near Antibes, and he was able to enjoy the luxury of the home circle while getting ready to drive the English out of Corsica. In due time the French fleet set sail; in due time it did what French fleets have usually done—failed dismally. The English were on the alert, swooped down, and captured two French vessels. The others ran to shelter under the guns of shore forts. The conquest of Corsica was postponed.