He sent off three letters protesting against the plan to split the command – an official one to the Directory, one to Carnot, and one to Barras – all three couched in a mixture of petulance and disingenuousness. ‘If I have lost the trust I enjoyed at the beginning of the campaign, I entreat you to let me know,’ he wrote to Barras. ‘In that case I would ask to be allowed to resign. As well as certain talents, nature has endowed me with a strong character, and I cannot be of any use here unless I have your entire confidence. If the intention is to make me play a secondary role, to oblige me to flap about under the orders of commissioners, to be subjected in my operations to a German whose principles I esteem no more than his manner, then I will leave the field to him.’ That, as the Directors well knew and Saliceti reminded them, would not have gone down well with the public, which had just received news of the epic feat of Lodi. To drive home his usefulness, Bonaparte sent a number of messages over the next few days, announcing the despatch of two million francs in gold from here, a fortune in jewellery and ingots from there, not to mention a hundred ‘fine horses, the finest that could be found’ for the Directors’ own carriages.7
‘It is only after Lodi that it struck me that I might become a major actor on our political scene,’ he would later tell his secretary. ‘It was then that the first spark of a higher ambition was ignited in me.’ He was sitting, lost in thought, by the fireside in the corner of a room on the evening of 7 May when it dawned on him that he was better qualified than the government he was serving. In writing up the fluke result of his actions at Lodi as a grand feat of arms he seems to have convinced himself that he possessed, or was possessed by, some kind of superior force. This is not entirely surprising, given that over the past four weeks success had followed success in an almost miraculous progression. Writing home to his father, Marmont could not contain his wonder. The less than admiring Costa de Beauregard reflected that ‘Bonaparte makes one think of those heroes who would cleave mountains with a flourish of their sword,’ a kind of magician who could do anything. A few days after Lodi, Bonaparte told Marmont that Fortune had singled him out and become his mistress. Such grandiloquent, emotionally charged phrases might sound like so much hot air, but they did express genuine thoughts and aspirations.8
The eighteenth century had seen the gradual replacement of the Christian view of life as a preparation for the next world with one which envisaged ways of attaining fulfilment in this. The French Revolution was born largely from the desire to reorder the world in this sense. The rejection of Christianity had suggested a return to the world of ancient Greece and Rome, which seemed more in tune with the republican ideals of the day. This was expressed in and nourished by the neo-classical movement in the arts. The legislative bodies of the French Republic dressed in togas, prominent figures assumed names taken from antiquity such as Brutus and Gracchus, and political discourse was peppered with classical references. The break with the civilisation of Christian Europe was symbolised by the adoption of a new calendar and the metric system with which to measure time and space in the new world the legislative bodies of the French Republic had created. It was Man, not God, who was central to the new value system, and his collective identity, the Nation or ‘patrie’, became the object of worship. Henri Beyle, to become famous as the novelist Stendhal, was thirteen when Bonaparte took command of the Army of Italy, and recalled that for his generation ‘our only religion was […] to be of service to the patrie’.9
The Revolution generated a cult of self-sacrifice for the cause whose ‘martyrs’ were represented in paintings by David and others in much the same manner as Christian saints had been. Where the crusaders of old sought Christian salvation, the soldiers of the French Republic believed their exertions would be crowned by a human version of immortality, loosely expressed in the word ‘gloire’.
‘The eldest of our generals had barely reached the age of thirty,’ recalled Bonaparte’s contemporary Lavalette, serving in the Army of the Rhine. ‘All of them aspired only to glory, and in their eyes it was only real if it involved danger.’ Marmont had a signet ring made which ‘expressed all the wishes with which my young heart was filled: it featured three interlaced crowns, one of ivy, one of laurel and one of myrtle, with this motto: I hope to deserve them’ (ivy was the symbol of eternity, laurel of fame, and myrtle of manhood and love).10
‘Of all the passions which affect the human heart, there is none which is more forceful than the love of la gloire,’ wrote Germaine de Staël in her book De l’influence des passions sur le bonheur des individus et des nations, published that very year of 1796. She did not belittle the part played in this by ambition or vanity, but saw the pursuit of gloire as a force in itself. ‘It is, without doubt, an intoxicating sensation to fill the universe with one’s name, to go so far beyond the bounds of one’s being that it becomes possible to delude oneself as to the limits and extent of one’s life, and to believe that one possesses some of the metaphysical attributes of infinity.’ She pointed out that in this psychological climate, anyone who could achieve gloire and offer to others the chance of a share in it would excite in them the spirit of emulation to such a degree that they would exert themselves to the very limit and beyond, creating a seemingly superhuman surge of energy.11
Brought up reading Plutarch’s lives of the heroes, Bonaparte and his peers yearned to emulate them. They were also profoundly affected by the Romantic sensibility expressed in the works of Rousseau, Goethe and Macpherson. The conflation of the urge to the heroic with that for emotional transcendence developed in many a subliminal belief that they were living a legend and conquering the impossible, like not just the heroes but also the gods of antiquity.
It was in the guise of a conquering hero that on 15 May Bonaparte made a triumphal entry into Milan, the capital of Lombardy, mounted on a white horse, preceded by a column of Austrian prisoners and followed at a respectful distance by his staff and then his troops. He passed under a Roman triumphal arch and another made of foliage and flowers, greeted with enthusiasm by Italian Jacobins and nationalists who had been awaiting him, in the words of one of them, ‘as the Israelites awaited the Messiah’, hailing him as their deliverer from Austrian rule and, they hoped, the godfather of an independent Italian state. Those less politically aroused also turned out in force to get a look at this man whose deeds were assuming legendary proportions in the public imagination. As it was a Sunday and the feast of the Pentecost they were dressed up, presenting a curious contrast with the conquerors of the mighty Austrian army.12
‘Our uniforms, worn out by long spells of mountain warfare, had been replaced by anything the soldiers could lay their hands on,’ recalled Sergeant Vigo-Roussillon. ‘In place of our long-rotted cartridge-cases we had belts made of goatskin in which we carried our cartridges. Our heads were covered with bonnets made of sheep, cat or rabbit fur. A fox-fur bonnet with the tail hanging down the back was a prized possession.’ They wore breeches or trousers of every colour, fancy, even embroidered waistcoats, and a variety of footwear.13
Two comrades-in-arms, a major and a lieutenant, shared three shirts, one pair of brown trousers, one uniform coat and one overcoat, which was worn by the one not wearing the trousers that day. One young officer brushed up as best he could when invited to dinner by the marchesa in whose residence he was billeted, but nevertheless padded into the dining room on bare feet.14
Bonaparte had gone straight to the archbishop’s residence, where he slept for a couple of hours and had a bath before attending a banquet in his honour. He then moved into the Serbelloni Palace, which had been placed at his disposal. He was also offered the beautiful prima donna of La Scala, Giuseppina Grassini, but could think only of Josephine, so Berthier stepped in. Bonaparte was not going to waste time in Milan.
On 20 May he issued a proclamation to his ‘brothers in arms’: ‘Soldiers! You rushed like a torrent from the heights of the Apennines, you defeated, dispersed, scattered all that opposed your progress. Delivered from Austrian
tyranny, Piedmont gave in to its natural sentiments of peace and friendship with France. Milan is yours, and the republican standard flies over the whole of Lombardy. The dukes of Parma and Modena owe their continued political existence only thanks to your generosity. The army which threatened you with such arrogance can no longer find a bulwark strong enough to shield it from your courage.’ He could see they were already tired of inactivity, and burning to achieve greater glory: ‘Well, let us go forward!’ he continued. ‘We still have forced marches to make, enemies to subdue, laurels to pick, wrongs to avenge.’ While they must be ready to defend the Republic, they must also fly to the aid of sister nations: ‘You will have the immortal glory of changing the face of the most beautiful part of Europe. The French nation, free, respected throughout the world, will give Europe a glorious peace which will redeem all the sacrifices it has made over the past six years. You will then return to your homes, and your fellow-citizens will say as they point you out: “He was in the Army of Italy!”’15
More to the point, he decreed that whereas they had hitherto been paid in paper money, which few, particularly in foreign lands, would accept, henceforth they would receive half of their pay in specie. The move was probably dictated in part by the need to stem the looting, but it also created a new bond of gratitude and loyalty between him and his men. The Directory was appalled by this act of independence, which diverted some of the cash being sucked out of Italy, on which it was coming to depend, into the pockets of the troops. But there was nothing it could do. Bonaparte was the only one of the army commanders helping to finance it; he was winning battles and riding high in public opinion. He was beyond the Directors’ control, and whether they liked it or not, their fate was closely tied to his popularity. On 29 May a fête of thanksgiving and victory would be held in Paris at which the captured banners were paraded, a contingent of wounded were honoured with oak leaves, sprigs of laurel and palm fronds, symbolising valour, glory and martyrdom, and a ‘Song of Victory’, while Junot presented Josephine, now hailed as ‘Notre Dame des Victoires’, to garner acclaim for her husband and Carnot praised his ‘invincible phalanxes’, whose deeds would astonish future generations.16
On 17 May Bonaparte wrote to the Directors disingenuously asking for instructions on how to deal with the local patriots. He knew they were thinking of giving Lombardy either to the King of Sardinia, in order to secure his alliance, or to Austria as a bargaining chip in the forthcoming peace negotiations. But he had his own vision. ‘Nature drew the limits of France at the Alps, but it also drew those of the Empire at the Tyrol,’ he pointed out. He had already promised liberty to the people of Lombardy and sanctioned a national guard, whose colours were to be the tricolour of the French Republic with the blue replaced by green. He began reorganising the former Austrian province along French lines, aided by Italian patriots from various parts of the peninsula who saw this as the cornerstone of an independent Italy. He was by now consciously implementing his own ideas. ‘I’m doing what I want,’ he told a surprised Italian patriot.17
‘I believe in the French Republic, and in Bonaparte her son,’ ran a Credo composed by some Italian nationalists; but others cursed him. The depredations of the French, both by officials and by soldiers on the rampage, caused hardship to ordinary people, and all those opposed to the French intrusion, be they fearful upholders of the old regime or Catholics horrified at the godlessness of the invaders, gave vent to their grievances. Riots broke out in various places. Bonaparte reacted with energy and in some cases brutality, most notably at Binasco, where the locals had massacred French soldiers. ‘Having killed a hundred people, we burned down the village, a terrible but efficacious example,’ he wrote to Berthier afterwards. At Pavia, which had risen against the French, he let his troops loose on the town for a couple of hours. He admitted that ‘although necessary, this spectacle was none the less horrible, and I was painfully affected by it’. The measures did prove efficacious, and he was soon able to report that the province was quiet. He enrolled young men coming forward to serve in what they believed to be the cause of Italy into a Lombard armed force which could maintain order.18
The improved supply situation did not stop the looting; it merely refocused it, as officers and men began to think of enriching themselves rather than just helping themselves to what they needed. The example was set by Masséna, who exacted protection money from towns he passed through, and it was widely followed. Bonaparte turned a blind eye, and even encouraged his subordinates to enrich themselves while ostentatiously declining to accept bribes offered him by the authorities of cities such as Lucca and Modena in order to distinguish himself from other generals by his moral stance.19
At the same time, Saliceti was bleeding the country dry in the service of the French Republic, as well as his own. At Lodi he raided the cathedral treasury and the Monte de Pietà, the charity which served as pawnbroker, removing five cases of silver plate and a number of ingots, and requisitioned the city’s cash funds. In Milan he helped himself to the contents of the banks, the city chest and the Monte de Pietà, although this time he returned to poor debtors their paltry treasures. He repeated the pattern in every city. ‘You are creating a hundred times more currency with your bayonets than we can with all our imaginable financial laws,’ one of the Directors acknowledged.20
It was not only cash and disposable valuables that were taken. Seeing the French Republic as the second Rome, its rulers believed the greatest works of art and science, libraries and archives, mechanical and scientific instruments, and any collections that could serve progress should be brought together in Paris. A commission consisting of the mathematician Gaspard Monge, the chemist Claude Berthollet, the botanists André Thouin and La Billardière, as well as a number of artists, was on its way with orders to select the objects worthy of being included in the libraries and museums of the capital. (It is worth noting that a protest against this was signed by the painters David, Hubert Robert, Moreau le Jeune, Girodet, the architects Percier and Fontaine, and many others.21)
Bonaparte had never accepted the secondary role of staging a diversion in Italy while Moreau carried out the main operations in Germany, and was determined to reverse this by striking first. Assuming that Moreau must have crossed the Rhine, he was eager to press on. Beaulieu had fallen back behind the river Mincio, his right wing resting at Peschiera on the southern shore of Lake Garda and his left on Mantua. Moving briskly, Bonaparte pierced his line at Borghetto and then turned north to roll it up. Disorientated Austrian units raced north in order to avoid being cut off, but some were overtaken by the French advance. At Valeggio, where he had just sat down to a light lunch with Masséna and Murat, Bonaparte was surprised by an isolated enemy unit and only had time to pull on one boot before making a dash for safety over a wall. By dawn the following day he was pursuing the Austrians falling back on Peschiera and Verona, which he reached on 3 June. He was overwhelmed by the beauty of the city. ‘I have just seen the amphitheatre,’ he reported to the Directory. ‘These remains left by the people of Rome are truly worthy of it. I could not help feeling a sense of humiliation when I thought of the tawdriness of our Champ de Mars.’22
Beaulieu had made his escape northwards along the eastern side of Lake Garda, pursued by French cavalry, while part of his army took refuge in the fortress of Mantua, where it was bottled up by Sérurier. Bonaparte was now in control of the whole former Austrian province of Lombardy, and he set about securing it. Without consulting with the Directory, he signed an armistice with the kingdom of Naples, which thereby retired from the anti-French coalition, and received a Spanish diplomat sent by the Pope to negotiate peace with the Holy See.
He raced back to Milan expecting to find Josephine waiting for him. Instead he found instructions from the Directory ordering him to march on Rome, which he could not easily disobey. He set off, reaching Bologna on 19 June, where he was met by the Pope’s envoy offering a bribe of five million francs to ward off a French invasion. Bonaparte demanded forty
million, as well as the treasure of the shrine of Loretto and a hundred works of art. On 23 June the Pope’s emissaries agreed, and signed an armistice. Bonaparte then crossed the Apennines and made for Livorno to secure the port against a possible landing by the British.
From there he made a trip to San Miniato to visit Canon Filippo Buonaparte, the last surviving member of the Tuscan branch of what might at one stage have been the same family as his own. He then marched on to Florence, where he went to the opera on the evening of 30 June and the following day lunched with the Grand Duke of Tuscany, brother of the Emperor Francis II with whom he was at war. By 4 July he was back at Roverbella, where he had established his headquarters.
He was worn out physically and mentally, and racked by anxiety alternating with jealousy over Josephine, whom he showered with increasingly despairing letters which reveal his changing moods. The brevity and lack of feeling of her infrequent letters inspired reproach and jealousy, followed by fears that she might be ill and self-reproach for having questioned her feelings. He pestered Joseph for news of her. On 18 May from Milan he wrote a letter full of joyful anticipation of what he thought was her imminent arrival, describing the beauties of Italy and the happy times ahead as they listened to divine music while watching her belly grow (he was still under the impression that she was pregnant). Five days later, worried by the lack of news from her, he wrote of how he had left a ball given for him at which he looked in vain among the many beauties for any who came close to her. ‘I could see only you, think only of you, and the thought made everything else unbearable, so, half an hour after arriving I went home to bed full of sadness.’ Thinking she would arrive on 13 June, he prepared her lodgings, but then discovered she had not left Paris yet. ‘I had opened my soul to joy, and it has filled with suffering,’ he wrote. He awaited the couriers with impatience, either to find that there was no letter from her, or if there was that it lacked the passion he craved. He concluded that her feelings for him had only been a ‘mild caprice’ which he had misunderstood, that while he had given himself to her entirely and lived only for her, she had merely toyed with him, and that she wanted a different kind of man. ‘Farewell, Josephine, stay in Paris, do not write to me any more, and at least respect my retreat,’ he wrote despairingly. ‘A thousand daggers are tearing my heart asunder, do not plunge them any deeper. Farewell, my happiness, my life, everything that existed for me on earth!!!’23
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