The History of Napoleon the First (Volume 1); 1769-1800 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IX CAMPO-FORMIO Bonaparte did not immediately congratulate the Government on the success of the coup-d'itat, of which he had been the first instigator. His enigmatical attitude disquieted the Directory. Barras wrote to him, 'Your silence is very singular, my dear General.' Augereau too expressed the same astonishment and the same anxiety. The General's first reply contained only a lukewarm approbation of their conduct; he either did not believe in the duration of their success, or else he felt the awkwardness of suddenly espousing their cause with enthusiasm, after the long reserve he had maintained. 'This victory avails us little, ' he wrote, 'if we are in disgrace with our countrymen. One may say of Paris what Cassius once said of Rome, of what value is her title of queen, when she is on the banks of the Seine slave of Pitt's gold?' The same day he wrote to Talleyrand: 'I tell you again that the Republic must not waver; let that swarm of journals which corrupt the minds of the public, and lower us in the eyes of foreigners, be stifled; let the Legislative Body keep pure and free from ambition; let the emigrants be expelled from France; and let all the friends of Louis XVIII., who are paid by gold from England, be compelled to resign their appointments; then will the great nation have peace. Till all that is done, reckon on nothing.' In a proclamation, addressed by him to the 8th Military Division formed from the Southern departments, and just placed under his command, he attacked in the same manner ' the agents of Louis XVIII., and the men covered with crimes, who had delivered Toulon to the English, ' without making any allusion to the i8th Fructidor. He could not, however, always stop at these purely general terms, and soon saw the necessity of ...