Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica

Chapter VI: Montebello--Paris--Egypt. 1797-1799

Josephine now deemed it well to join her lord at Milan. There had been so many only women he had ever loved that she was not satisfied to remain at Paris while he was conducting garden-parties at the Castle of Montebello. Furthermore, Bonaparte himself wished her to be present.

"This Montebello life is, after all, little else than a dress rehearsal for what is to come," he said, confidentially, to Bourrienne, "and Josephine can't afford to be absent. It's a great business, this being a Dictator and having a court of your own, and I'm inclined to think I shall follow it up as my regular profession after I've conquered a little more of the earth."

Surrounded by every luxury, and in receipt for the first time in his life of a steady income, Bonaparte carried things with a high hand. He made treaties with various powers without consulting the Directory, for whom every day he felt a growing contempt.

"What is the use of my consulting the Directory, anyhow?" he asked. "If it were an Elite Directory it might be worth while, but it isn't. I shall, therefore, do as I please, and if they don't like what I do I'll ratify it myself."

Ambassadors waited upon him as though he were a king, and when one ventured to disagree with the future Emperor he wished he hadn't. Cobentzel, the envoy of the Austrian ruler, soon discovered this.

"I refuse to accept your ultimatum," said he one day to Napoleon, after a protracted conference.

"You do, eh?"--said Napoleon, picking up a vase of delicate workmanship. "Do you see this jug?"

"Yes," said Cobentzel.

"Well," continued Napoleon, dropping it to the floor, where it was shattered into a thousand pieces, "do you see it now?"

"I do," said Cobentzel; "what then?"

"It has a mate," said Napoleon, significantly; "and if you do not accept my ultimatum I'll smash the other one upon your plain but honest countenance."

Cobentzel accepted the ultimatum.

Bonaparte's contempt for the Directory was beginning to be shared by a great many of the French, and, to save themselves, the "Five Sires of the Luxembourg," as the Directory were called, resolved on a brilliant stroke, which involved no less a venture than the invasion of England. Bonaparte, hearing of this, and anxious to see London, of which he had heard much, left Italy and returned to Paris.

"If there's a free tour of England to be had, Josephine," said he, "I am the man to have it. Besides, this climate of Italy is getting pretty hot for an honest man. I've refused twenty million francs in bribes in two weeks. If they'd offered another sou I'm afraid I'd have taken it. I will therefore go to Paris, secure the command of the army of England, and pay a few of my respects to George Third, Esq. I hear a great many English drop their h's; I'll see if I can't make 'em drop their l. s. d.'s as well."

Arrived in Paris, Bonaparte was much courted by everybody.

"I have arrived," he said, with a grim smile. "Even my creditors are glad to see me, and I'll show them that I have not forgotten them by running up a few more bills."

This he did, going to the same tradesmen that he had patronized in his days of poverty. To his hatter, whom he owed for his last five hats, he said:

"They call me haughty here; they say I am cold. Well, I am cold. I've shivered on the Alps several times since I was here last, and it has chilled my nature. It has given me the grip, so to speak, and when I lose my grip the weather will be even colder. Give me a hat, my friend."

"What size?" asked the hatter.

"The same," said Bonaparte, with a frown. "Why do you ask?"

"I was told your head had swelled," returned the hatter, meekly.

"They shall pay for this," murmured Napoleon, angrily.

"I am glad," said the hatter, with a sigh. "I was wondering who'd pay for it."

"Oh, you were, eh?" said Napoleon. "Well, wonder no more. Get out your books."

The hatter did so.

"Now charge it," said Napoleon.

"To whom?" asked the hatter.

"Those eminent financiers, Profit & Loss," said Napoleon, with a laugh, as he left the shop. "That's what I call a most successful hat-talk," he added, as he told Bourrienne of the incident later in the day.

"How jealous they all are!" said Bourrienne. "The idea of your having a swelled head is ridiculous."

"Of course," said Napoleon; "all I've got is a proper realization of 'Whom I Am,' as they say in Boston. But wait, my boy, wait. When I put a crown on my head--"

What Bonaparte would have said will never be known, for at that moment the general's servant announced Mme. Sans Gene, his former laundress, and that celebrated woman, unconventional as ever, stalked into the room. Napoleon looked at her coldly.

"You are--?" he queried.

"Your former laundress," she replied.

"Ah, and you want--?"

"My pay," she retorted.

"I am sorry, madame," said the General, "but the expenses of my Italian tour have been very great, and I am penniless. I will, however, assist you to the full extent of my power. Here are three collars and a dress-shirt. If you will launder them I will wear them to the state ball to-morrow evening, and will tell all my rich and influential friends who did them up, and if you wish I will send you a letter saying that I patronized your laundry once two years ago, and have since used no other."

These anecdotes, unimportant in themselves, are valuable in that they refute the charges made against General Bonaparte at this time-- first, that he returned from Egypt with a fortune, and, second, that he carried himself with a hauteur which rendered him unapproachable.

For various reasons the projected invasion of England was abandoned, and the expedition to Egypt was substituted. This pleased Napoleon equally as well.

"I wasn't stuck on the English invasion, anyhow," he said, in writing to Joseph. "In the first place, they wanted me to go in October, when the London season doesn't commence until spring, and, in the second place, I hate fogs and mutton-chops. Egypt is more to my taste. England would enervate me. Egypt, with the Desert of Sahara in its backyard, will give me plenty of sand, and if you knew what projects I have in mind--which, of course, you don't, for you never knew anything, my dear Joseph--you'd see how much of that I need."

The Directory were quite as glad to have Napoleon go to Egypt as he was to be sent. Their jealousy of him was becoming more painful to witness every day.

"If he goes to England," said Barras, "he'll conquer it, sure as fate; and it will be near enough for excursion steamers to take the French people over to see him do it. If that happens we are lost."

"He'll conquer Egypt, though, and he'll tell about it in such a way that he will appear twice as great," suggested Carnot. "Seems to me we'd better sell out at once and be done with it."

"Not so," said Moulin. "Let him go to Egypt. Very likely he'll fall off a pyramid there and break his neck."

"Or get sunstruck," suggested Barras.

"There's no question about it in my mind," said Gohier. "Egypt is the place. If he escapes the pyramids or sunstroke, there are still the lions and the simoon, not to mention the rapid tides of the Red Sea. Why, he just simply can't get back alive. I vote for Egypt."

Thus it happened that on the 19th day of May, 1798, with an army of forty thousand men and a magnificant staff of picked officers, Napoleon embarked for Egypt.

"I'm glad we're off," said he to the sailor who had charge of his steamer-chair. "I've got to hurry up and gain some more victories or these French will forget me. A man has to make a three-ringed circus of himself to keep his name before the public these days."

"What are you fightin' for this time, sir?" asked the sailor, who had not heard that war had been declared--"ile paintin's or pyramids?"

"I am going to free the people of the East from the oppressor," said Napoleon, loftily.

"And it's a noble work, your honor," said the sailor. "Who is it that's oppressin' these people down East?"

"You'll have to consult the Directory," said Napoleon, coldly. "Leave me; I have other things to think of."

On the 10th of June Malta was reached, and the Knights of St. John, long disused to labor of any sort, like many other knights of more modern sort, surrendered in most hospitable fashion, inviting Napoleon to come ashore and accept the freedom of the island or anything else he might happen to want. His reply was characteristic:

"Tell the Knights of Malta to attend to their cats. I'm after continents, not islands," said he; and with this, leaving a detachment of troops to guard his new acquisition, he proceeded to Alexandria, which he reached on the 1st of July. Here, in the midst of a terrible storm and surf, Napoleon landed his forces, and immediately made a proclamation to the people.

"Fellahs!" he cried, "I have come. The newspapers say to destroy your religion. As usual, they prevaricate. I have come to free you. All you who have yokes to shed prepare to shed them now. I come with the olive-branch in my hand. Greet me with outstretched palms. Do not fight me for I am come to save you, and I shall utterly obliterate any man, be he fellah, Moujik, or even the great Marmalade himself, who prefers fighting to being saved. We may not look it, but we are true Mussulmen. If you doubt it, feel our muscle. We have it to burn. Desert the Mamelukes and be saved. The Pappylukes are here."

On reading this proclamation Alexandria immediately fell, and Bonaparte, using the Koran as a guide-book, proceeded on his way up the Nile. The army suffered greatly from the glare and burning of the sun-scorched sand, and from the myriads of pestiferous insects that infested the country; but Napoleon cheered them on. "Soldiers!" he cried, when they complained, "if this were a summer resort, and you were paying five dollars a day for a room at a bad hotel, you'd think yourselves in luck, and you'd recommend your friends to come here for a rest. Why not imagine this to be the case now? Brace up. We'll soon reach the pyramids, and it's a mighty poor pyramid that hasn't a shady side. On to Cairo!"

"It's easy enough for you to talk," murmured one. "You've got a camel to ride on and we have to walk."

"Well, Heaven knows," retorted Napoleon, pointing to his camel, "camel riding isn't like falling off a log. At first I was carried away with it, but for the last two days it has made me so sea-sick I can hardly see that hump."

After this there was no more murmuring, but Bonaparte did not for an instant relax his good-humor.

"The water is vile," said Dessaix, one morning.

"Why not drink milk, then?" asked the commander.

"Milk! I'd love to," returned Dessaix; "but where shall I find milk?"

"At the dairy," said Napoleon, with a twinkle in his eye.

"What dairy?" asked Dessaix, not observing the twinkle.

"The dromedary," said Napoleon, with a roar.

Little incidents like this served to keep the army in good spirits until the 21st of July, when they came in sight of the pyramids. Instantly Napoleon called a halt, and the army rested. The next day, drawing them up in line, the General addressed them. "Soldiers!" he cried, pointing to the pyramids, "from the summits of those pyramids forty centuries look down upon you. You can't see them, but they are there. No one should look down upon the French, not even a century. Therefore, I ask you, shall we allow the forces of the Bey, his fellahs and his Tommylukes, to drive us into the desert of Sahara, bag and baggage, to subsist on a sea-less seashore for the balance of our days, particularly when they haven't any wheels on their cannon?"

"No, no!" cried the army.

"Then up sail and away!" cried Bonaparte. "This is to be no naval affair, but the army of the Bey awaits us."

"Tell the band to play a Wagner march," he whispered, hastily, to his aide-de-camp. "It'll make the army mad, and what we need now is wrath."

So began the battle of the Pyramids. The result is too well known to readers of contemporary history to need detailed statement here. All day long it raged, and when night fell Cairo came with it. Napoleon, worn out with fatigue, threw himself down on a pyramid to rest.

"Ah!" he said, as he breathed a sigh of relief, "what a glorious day! We've beat 'em! Won't the Directory be glad? M. Barras will be more M. Barrassed than ever." Then, turning and tapping on the door of the massive pile, he whispered, softly: "Ah! Ptolemy, my man, it's a pity you've no windows in this tomb. You'd have seen a pretty sight this day. Kleber," he added, turning to that general, "do you know why Ptolemy inside this pyramid and I outside of it are alike?"

"I cannot guess, General," said Kleber. "Why?"

"We're both 'in it'!" returned Napoleon, retiring to his tent.

Later on in the evening, summoning Bourrienne, the victor said to him:

"Mr. Secretary, I have a new autograph. If Ptolemy can spell his name with a 'p,' why shouldn't I? I'm not going to have history say that a dead mummy could do things I couldn't. Pnapoleon would look well on a state paper."

"No doubt," said Bourrienne; "but every one now says that you copy Caesar. Why give them the chance to call you an imitator of Ptolemy also?"

"True, my friend, true," returned Napoleon, in a tone of disappointment. "I had not thought of that. When you write my autographs for the children of these Jennylukes--"

"Mamelukes, General," corrected Bourrienne.

"Ah, yes--I always get mixed in these matters--for the children of these Mamelukes, you may stick to the old form. Good-night."

And with that the conqueror went to sleep as peacefully as a little child.

Had Bonaparte now returned to France he would have saved himself much misery. King of fire though he had become in the eyes of the vanquished, his bed was far from being one of roses.

"In a climate like that," he observed, sadly, many years after, "I'd rather have been an ice baron. Africa got entirely too hot to cut any ice with me. Ten days after I had made my friend Ptolemy turn over in his grave, Admiral Nelson came along with an English fleet and challenged our Admiral Brueys to a shooting-match for the championship of Aboukir Bay. Brueys, having heard of what magazine writers call the ships of the desert in my control, supposing them to be frigates and not camels, imagined himself living in Easy Street, and accepted the challenge. He expected me to sail around to the other side of Nelson, and so have him between two fires. Well, I don't go to sea on camels, as you know, and the result was that after a twenty-four-hour match the camels were the only ships we had left. Nelson had won the championship, laid the corner-stone of monuments to himself all over English territory, cut me off from France, and added three thousand sea-lubbers to my force, for that number of French sailors managed to swim ashore during the fight. I manned the camels with them immediately, but it took them months to get their land legs on, and the amount of grog they demanded would have made a quick-sand of the Desert of Sahara, all of which was embarrassing."

But Napoleon did not show his embarrassment to those about him. He took upon himself the government of Egypt, opened canals, and undertook to behave like a peaceable citizen for a while.

"I needed rest, and I got it," he said. "Sitting on the apex of the pyramids, I could see the whole world at my feet, and whatever others may say to the contrary, it was there that I began to get a clear view of my future. It seemed to me that from that lofty altitude, chumming, as I was, with the forty centuries I have already alluded to, I could see two ways at once, that every glance could penetrate eternity; but I realize now that what I really got was only a bird's- eye view of the future. I didn't see that speck of a St. Helena. If I had, in the height of my power I should have despatched an expedition of sappers and miners to blow it up."

Quiescence might as well be expected of a volcano, however, as from a man of Bonaparte's temperament, and it was not long before he was again engaged in warfare, but not with his old success; and finally, the plague having attacked his army, Bonaparte, too tender-hearted to see it suffer, leaving opium for the sick and instructions for Kleber, whom he appointed his successor, set sail for France once more in September, 1799.

"Remember, Kleber, my boy," he said, in parting, "these Mussulmen are a queer lot. Be careful how you treat them. If you behave like a Christian you're lost. I don't want to go back to France, but I must. I got a view of the next three years from the top of Cheops last night just before sunset, and if that view is to be carried out my presence in Paris is positively required. The people are tired of the addresses given by the old Directory, and they're seriously thinking of getting out a new one, and I want to be on hand either to edit it or to secure my appointment to some lucrative consulship."

"You!--a man of your genius after a consulship?" queried Kleber, astonished.

"Yes, I have joined the office-seekers, General; but wait till you hear what consulship it is. The American consul-generalship at London is worth $70,000 a year, but mine--mine in contrast to that is as golf to muggins."

"And what shall I tell the reporters about that Jaffa business if they come here? That poison scandal is sure to come up," queried Kleber.

"Treat them well. Tell the truth if you know it, and--ah--invite them to dinner," said Bonaparte. "Give them all the delicacies of the season. When you serve the poisson, let it be with one 's,' and, to make assurance doubly sure, flavor the wines with the quickest you have."

"Quickest what?" asked Kleber, who was slightly obtuse.

"Humph!" sneered Napoleon. "On second thoughts, if reporters bother you, take them swimming where the crocodiles are thickest--only either don't bathe with them yourself, or wear your mail bathing- suit. Furthermore, remember that what little of the army is left are my children."

"What?" cried the obtuse Kleber. "All those?"

"They are my children, Kleber," said Napoleon, his voice shaking with emotion. "I am young to be the head of so large a family, but the fact remains as I have said. They may feel badly at my going away and leaving them even with so pleasing a hired man as yourself, but comfort them, let them play in the sand all they please, and if they want to know why papa has gone away, tell them I've gone to Paris to buy them some candy."

With these words Napoleon embarked, and on the 16th of October Paris received him with open arms. That night the members of the Directory came down with chills and fever.