general of artillery inspired Albitte and Salicetti with suspicions prejudicial to him. Be this as it may, the two representatives drew up a resolution, ordering that General Bonaparte should be arrested, suspended from his rank, and arraigned before the Committee of Public Safety; and, extraordinary as it may appear, this resolution was founded in that very journey to Genoa which Bonaparte executed by the direction of the representatives of the people.
—[Madame Junot throws some light on this Persecution of Bonaparte by Salicetti. "One motive (I do not mean to say the only one)," remarks this lady, "of the animosity shown by Salicetti to Bonaparte, in the affair of Loano, was that they were at one time suitors to the same lady. I am not sure whether it was in Corsica or in Paris, but I know for a fact that Bonaparte, in spite of his youth, or perhaps I should rather say on account of his youth, was the favoured lover. It was the opinion of my brother, who was secretary to Salicetti, that Bonaparte owed his life to a circumstance which is not very well known. The fact is, that Salicetti received a letter from Bonaparte, the contents of which appeared to make a deep impression on him. Bonaparte's papers had been delivered into Salicetti's hands, who, after an attentive perusal of them, laid them aside with evident dissatisfaction. He then took them up again, and read them a second time. Salicetti declined my brother's assistance is the examination of the papers, and after a second examination, which was probably as unsatisfactory as the first, he seated himself with a very abstracted air. It would appear that he had seen among the papers some document which concerned himself. Another curious fact is, that the man who had the care of the papers after they were sealed up was an inferior clerk entirely under the control of Salicetti; and my brother, whose business it was to have charge of the papers, was directed not to touch them. He has often spoken to me of this circumstance, and I mention it here as one of importance to the history of the time. Nothing that relates to a man like Napoleon can be considered useless or trivial.
"What, after all, was the result of this strange business which might have cost Bonaparte his head?—for, had he been taken to Paris and tried by the Committee of Public Safety, there is little doubt that the friend of Robespierre the younger would have been condemned by Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois. The result was the acquittal of the accused. This result is the more extraordinary, since it would appear that at that time Salicetti stood in fear of the young general. A compliment is even paid to Bonaparte in the decree, by which he was provisionally restored to liberty. That liberation was said to be granted on the consideration that General Bonaparte might be useful to the Republic. This was foresight; but subsequently when measures were taken which rendered Bonaparte no longer an object of fear, his name was erased from the list of general officers, and it is a curious fact that Cambacérès, who was destined to be his colleague in the Consulate, was one of the persons who signed the act of erasure" (Memoirs of the Duchesse d'Abrantes, vol. i, p. 69, edit. 1843).]—
Bonaparte said at St. Helena that he was a short time imprisoned by order of the representative Laporte; but the order for his arrest was signed by Albitte, Salicetti, and Laporte.
—[Albitte and Laporte were the representatives sent from the Convention to the army of the Alps, and Salicetti to the army of Italy.]—
Laporte was not probably the most influential of the three, for Bonaparte did not address his remonstrance to him. He was a fortnight under arrest.
Had the circumstance occurred three weeks earlier, and had Bonaparte been arraigned before the Committee of Public Safety previous to the 9th Thermidor, there is every probability that his career would have been at an end; and we should have seen perish on the scaffold, at the age of twenty-five, the man who, during the twenty-five succeeding years, was destined to astonish the world by his vast conceptions, his gigantic projects, his great military genius, his extraordinary good fortune, his faults, reverses, and final misfortunes.
It is worth while to remark that in the post-Thermidorian resolution just alluded to no mention is made of Bonaparte's association with Robespierre the younger. The severity with which he was treated is the more astonishing, since his mission to Genoa was the alleged cause of it. Was there any other charge against him, or had calumny triumphed over the services he had rendered to his country? I have frequently conversed with him on the subject of this adventure, and he invariably assured me that he had nothing to reproach himself with, and that his defence, which I shall subjoin, contained the pure expression of his sentiments, and the exact truth.
In the following note, which he addressed to Albitte and Salicetti, he makes no mention of Laporte. The copy which I possess is in the handwriting of, Junot, with corrections in the General's hand. It exhibits all the characteristics of Napoleon's writing: his short sentences, his abrupt rather than concise style, sometimes his elevated ideas, and always his plain good sense.
TO THE REPRESENTATIVES ALBITTE AND SALICETTI:
You have suspended me from my duties, put me under arrest, and declared me to be suspected.
Thus I am disgraced before being judged, or indeed judged before being heard.
In a revolutionary state there are two classes, the suspected and the patriots.
When the first are aroused, general measures are adopted towards them for the sake of security.
The oppression of the second class is a blow to public liberty. The magistrate cannot condemn until after the fullest evidence and a succession of facts. This leaves nothing to arbitrary decision.
To declare a patriot suspected is to deprive him of all that he most highly values—confidence and esteem.
In what class am I placed?
Since the commencement of the Revolution, have I not always been attached to its principles?
Have I not always been contending either with domestic enemies or foreign foes?
I sacrificed my home, abandoned my property, and lost everything for the Republic?
I have since served with some distinction at Toulon, and earned a part of the laurels of the army of Italy at the taking of Saorgio, Oneille, and Tanaro.
On the discovery of Robespierre's conspiracy, my conduct was that of a man accustomed to look only to principles.
My claim to the title of patriot, therefore cannot be disputed.
Why, then, am I declared suspected without being heard, and arrested eight days after I heard the news of the tyrant's death.
I am declared suspected, and my papers are placed under seal.
The reverse of this course ought to have been adopted. My papers should first have been sealed; then I should have been called on for my explanation; and, lastly, declared suspected, if there was reason for coming to, such a decision.
It is wished that I should go to Paris with an order which declares me suspected. It will naturally be presumed that the representatives did not draw up this decree without accurate information, and I shall be judged with the bias which a man of that class merits.
Though a patriot and an innocent and calumniated man, yet whatever measures may be adopted by the Committee I cannot complain.
If three men declare that I have committed a crime, I cannot complain of the jury who condemns me.
Salicetti, you know me; and I ask whether you have observed anything in my conduct for the last five years which can afford ground of suspicion?
Albitte, you do not know me; but you have received proof of no fact against me; you have not heard me, and you know how artfully the tongue of calumny sometimes works.
Must I then be confounded with the enemies of my country and ought the patriots inconsiderately to sacrifice a general who has not been useless to the Republic? Ought the representatives to reduce the Government to the necessity of being unjust and impolitic?
Hear me; destroy the oppression that overwhelms me, and restore me to the esteem