How he is shunned! Powerful friends, to whom he sends letter after letter, long epistles, make no answer. He writes beseechingly for little things, such as “a good surveying outfit for the army,” when he wishes to force an influential comrade to reply. All at once comes a signal from the island. Old Paoli has summoned the English to his aid. Corsica must be saved for France! Back to Paris, in order to fan the flames. The expedition is actually decided on, and he eagerly hopes to secure the command. In a fortnight the fleet is back at Toulon, having sustained a reverse. Fresh disappointment! Why did they not put him in charge? Had he not conquered Toulon, fortified the coast—all with an eye towards the campaign against Corsica?

Reaction is in full swing. Napoleon is suspect. The authorities offer him high command in Vendée, for this will separate him from his adherents. At the same time he is transferred to the infantry, as a “supernumerary.” How mortifying to a highly skilled artillerist!

The pale young man grew paler than ever, for he had made up his mind to refuse. He expostulated with the People’s Commissary for War, who, in reply, twitted him with his youth. Napoleon looked the commissary, who knew little of active service, straight in the eyes, and said: “A man matures quickly on the battle-field, and it is from the battle-field that I come.” Refusal to obey orders; expectation of dire consequences; just as it had been three years before.

Guérin. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

(From the “Corpus Imaginum” of the Photographic Society, Charlottenburg.)]

What had I better do? Report sick? Apply for leave? The out-of-work general turns the possibilities over in his mind. Better stay where I am. Paris is the world’s navel. True, Marmont and Junot, who have joined him without leave, are also penniless. What’s Bourrienne doing? Speculating? Well, I can try that too, but assignats are falling. How badly you staged the last affair. Did you think you could make a coup d’état without cannon? But to Saliceti, who in his turn has had serious charges brought against him, and is being sheltered by a fellow-countrywoman, he writes: “You see, I might have paid you back in your own coin.... Who has played the better part, you or I? I might have taken vengeance on you, but have not done so.... Go in peace, to seek a refuge where you can, and meditate upon your country to better advantage. My lips will always be sealed about you. Take counsel with yourself, appreciate my motives ... they are noble and magnanimous.”

During these summer weeks, the flood of life is obscurely murmuring, is heavily pulsing against the shores. He is profoundly moved by _Ossian_, the book of melancholy passion; and he is stirred by the tragical end of plays he witnesses, hastening from the theatre that his mood may not be jarred by the subsequent farce. “How preposterous, in this new opera, to give a happy ending to _Paul and Virginie_ by having the girl rescued!”—“But what is happiness?” asks the lady to whom he says this.

“Happiness?” answers Buonaparte. “The highest possible development of my talents.”

Just now they are lying fallow, that is what troubles him. He is a prey to increasing dejection and dumb rancour. When a comedy is being played (the wife of one of his friends reports this), every one else is laughing, but Buonaparte sits there in frozen silence. Sometimes he vanishes, to reappear with gloomy aspect at the other side of the stalls. Often enough his lips are twisted in an unsuccessful attempt to smile. He is an irresistible raconteur of campaign stories, but his laughter on these occasions is rough. He is often to be seen wandering through the streets, short in the leg, thin, sallow, sickly, irritable of mien, “awkward, hesitant, wearing an old round hat, from beneath which two badly powdered ‘dog’s ears’ project, scurf upon his collar, his ungloved hands are long and lean and dark, ill-fitting boots.”

He now plans a book traffic with foreign lands; but his first attempt, with a consignment to Basle, miscarries.

Sometimes he visits drawing-rooms, for, as he writes to his brother, every one here seeks distraction.... There are women all over the place, at the theatre, in the Bois, at the Library. The prettiest of girls are to be found in the studies of the learned. Indeed, it is right that women should rule here, for the men are infatuated, living only through and for women.

When Buonaparte is in the salon of Barras, the tribune (who outdoes himself in splendour and extravagance, so that all Paris talks; who can never have enough women round him), when he stands there among women famous for their beauty like Tallien and Récamier, he, who is small and gloomy and angular, can only make an impression by cleverness and caprice. Even then he seems a freak.

Always the solitary, he only “lets himself go” in his long letters to his brothers. He is educating Louis, and writes: “The lad is a good soldier. What especially pleases me is that he combines so many excellent qualities: ardour, spirit, health, talent, trustworthiness, good-nature.... He will certainly be the best of us four. Of course, none of us have enjoyed his advantages in the matter of education.” He is thinking of having Jerome, the youngest, sent to Paris. He is at odds with Lucien. This talented brother is his rival. Indeed, Lucien vies with Napoleon in his knowledge of men, was the first to understand Napoleon, did so already when he was seventeen while his brother was twenty-three. “In Napoleon,” wrote young Lucien to Joseph, “I detect an ambition which is not wholly selfish, but is greater than his love for the public welfare. In a free State he would certainly be a dangerous man. He seems to me inclined to become a despot. I think he would become one, were he king. At any rate, his name would be a terror to posterity and to sensitive patriots.” In Lucien’s mouth, such grandiose vaticination is no mere playing with words. His own ambition is so intense that in this age and country he regards a development of the kind as quite possible for his brother, and he is mortified at the prospect that Napoleon is likely to outshine him.

For the nonce, Napoleon is in low spirits. He envies Joseph, whom money and happiness have made independent. He offers Joseph support in the way of introductions and papers; advises him to use the depreciated currency for the economical purchase of an estate. Yet we find him already writing to his elder brother, apropos of a letter on political questions: “Your letter was too dry; you must learn to write better than that.”

A home! He wants a home of his own, like Joseph. More eagerly in each successive letter he urges Joseph to make sure for him of the wealthy sister-in-law, with whom he has been in affectionate correspondence for more than a year. When she is slow to make up her mind, he presses for a decision. His brother and one of his intimate friends have married well; comrades of his own age occupy prominent positions. Only he, with his surging thoughts and imaginative schemes, remains lonely and does nothing.

“If you are going away for a long time,” he writes to Joseph, “send me your portrait. We have lived so long in close companionship that our hearts are intertwined. No one knows better than you how wholly I am yours. As I write these lines, I am more moved than almost ever before, feeling that it will be long before we meet again. I cannot write any more. Farewell, mon ami.”

He is in a melting mood, and at times he seems utterly discouraged. “To clamber upwards from step to step, this is rather like an adventurer, like a man who is trying to make happiness.” Finally he says: “Life is a trivial dream, which fades away....”