“How shabby their dresses are!” thinks Letizia Buonaparte, when her two half-grown girls come home from the market with their poor purchases. The refugees are living on the fourth floor of a confiscated house in Marseilles (the owner, a nobleman, has been guillotined). The mother is in the early forties. The three children with her are earning bread for the family as best they can; the two youngest are still in Corsica, cared for by relatives. Since the Buonapartes are “persecuted patriots,” they receive a part of their rations from the commandant. Letizia, who is proud as ever, makes no complaints.

Soon Napoleon, who is travelling, has the chance of putting some lucrative opportunities in his brother’s way, affairs connected with the supply of munitions of war. Maternal Uncle Fesch lays aside the priestly habit and becomes a man of business, in the silk trade. Then Joseph, who is of fashionable exterior, resembling his father in appearance, and, as the eldest, following the father’s example in styling himself Count Buonaparte,—wins the hand of one of the two heiresses of a Marseilles silk merchant. Napoleon entertains thoughts of marrying his sister-in-law Désirée, the late silk merchant’s other daughter.

He is on the move throughout this summer; now at Nice, with his regiment; now on the Rhone; now at Toulon. All the time, his soldier’s eyes are on the look out; his artillerist’s brain is noting the actual and the potential fortifications along this strip of coast. Soon he will make good use of the knowledge now acquired. Meanwhile he writes political dialogues. One of them in conversational form, appears as a pamphlet, printed at the public expense.

In this conversation, the manufacturer is of a familiar type. The well-to-do folk of Toulon, like their brethren in Marseilles, are, in fact, under Robespierre’s rule, afraid of losing their heads or even their property. Concern for their money-bags tends to make them ever more solicitous for the welfare of the sometime royal house, now in exile. At length, in the hope of saving their capital, they call the enemies of France to their aid, handing over the remnants of the navy to the English, who in return promise them protection.

This is a fearful blow for the young republic. On all fronts, France is at grips with the forces of reaction. Belgium has been lost; the Spaniards are advancing over the mountains; in Vendée, the Bourbon cause is gaining ground. Then comes the crowning disaster of Toulon. The republic calls up its last man for active service, enlists women, transforms the whole of France into an armed camp. Experts are doubly welcome.

Before Toulon, preparations are being made to drive out the English. As to how this is to be done, the Convention leaves that to the commander of the forces, originally a painter of pictures, in whom revolutionary enthusiasm is to make up for the lack of technical knowledge of the art of war.

Then it came to pass that young Captain Buonaparte, returning from Avignon whither he had been sent for a consignment of gunpowder, paid a visit to his fellow-countryman Saliceti, who introduced the young artillerist to the painter-general. After dinner, the dilettantes went for a stroll, and happened upon a 24-pounder, several miles from the sea. They began to boast of all that the gun would do. The expert assured them that, in its present position, it would be useless. He fired four shots to show them that the sea was quite out of range. Dumbfounded, they kept Buonaparte at Toulon, and set him to work.

“At last, one end of the rope is in my hands. Grip and hold fast!” thinks the lonely man with the strong will. With amazing activity, our captain has heavy guns brought from all possible places along the coast. In six weeks, he has more than a hundred pieces of ordnance at his disposal.

Now he will give a display of his talents as military commander. What is his plan? He will mount batteries on the tongue of land which divides the bay into twin harbours, and will thus cut off the hostile fleet from access to the sea. The British commander will not stay to be shot at in a mousehole with no outlet. He will set light to the arsenal and withdraw his forces from the town.

“Fantastical nonsense!” say the amateurs, mockingly. But Buonaparte, who has friends in the Convention, has a complaint lodged there against his chief. He also sends to Paris his scheme for the bombardment of Toulon, many pages of manuscript, containing, in addition, counsel of a more general nature: “Our fire must always be concentrated. If we can breach the wall, the balance will incline to our side, resistance will be fruitless, the place will be won. To live, we must divide; to strike, we must unite. Victory is impossible without unity of command. Time is everything!” Thus does a captain of twenty-four write to the central authorities.

He has a powerful ally in Paris, the younger Robespierre, who has the reputation of a man of talent, and is not completely overshadowed by his all-powerful brother. “Should you ever need a man of iron for street fighting,” said Joseph Robespierre to Maximilien, “a young man, a new man—then it must be this Buonaparte.” Indeed, the Corsican adventurer had already been asked whether he would become military guardian of the terrorists, but considerations of caution had led him to decline. Now his plan was approved, and the painter-general was recalled. Who would replace him?

Buonaparte gnashes his teeth. Another dilettante! The new general is a medical man. He spends his time nosing out conspiracies hatched by the nobility—and meanwhile the enemy occupies the precious tongue of land. From Paris there had come State carriages filled with “men of genius,” clad in brilliant uniforms, and resolved to end the siege of Toulon, to take the place out of hand. Buonaparte led them to an unprotected battery. When the enemy opened fire, and they looked round vainly for cover, their guide said gravely: “We do without cover, nowadays; we have patriotism instead.” This young man with blue-grey eyes is more interested in actions than in intentions. Further complaints, and a new change in command. This time the chief is a tried warrior, who is prompt to appoint Napoleon battalion commander, and to adopt the young artillerist’s plan for driving the enemy from the tongue of land.

When, finally, Toulon is stormed (still in accordance with Buonaparte’s designs), his horse is shot under him; and he is wounded in the calf by an English lance—this being his first and almost his last wound. Moreover, it is his first victory, although he is not the official commander; and it is a victory over England. The enemy retreats to the ships, fires the arsenal, and withdraws, all in one night, just as Napoleon had foretold.

Conflagration and death, battle and the terrors of a naval port in which thousands of treasonable burghers are trying to escape the avengers; amid all the fierce passions of this December night, through the reek and the cries, across heaps of corpses, and to the accompaniment of the agonised curses of drowning civilians and the exultant shouts of looting soldiers, a new star rises in the firmament—Napoleon’s fame.