time, making a sally, captured the batteries and spiked the guns; but Napoleon Buonaparte appearing, and rallying the troops, the English were driven back into their forts, and their general, O'Hara, taken. erected by the disaffected inhabitants and their English allies. An amusing anecdote is recorded in the Memoir of Las Casas, of a transaction that took place during this siege. A number of Parisians arriving at the camp, The doctor general, who had superseded in fifteen splendid carriages, demanded an the martial music-master, had a narrow es- audience of the commander-in-chief, and cape of acquiring a splendid military reputa- reproaching him with inactivity and delay in tion, by the taking of Little Gibraltar within its operations, and the breach of his orders forty-eight hours after his arrival in the issued by the conventional sages, "to capcamp. A French soldier, on duty in the ture the fortress in three days," said, "We trenches, having been taken by the Spaniards are volunteer-gunners from Paris: we burn on guard in the redoubt, was so ill-treated, with ardour to fulfil our country's expectawithin sight of his comrades, that the latter tions: furnish us with arms; to-morrow commenced an attack on the fort, and being we will march upon the enemy." The comsupported by a sufficient force, had reached mander-in-chief stood confounded; but, at the gorge of the redoubt, when Doppet's Napoleon Buonaparte's suggestion, directed aid-de-camp being killed by his side, the them to man, on the morrow, a park of general was seized with so great a panic, artillery on the beach. When the Parisian that he ordered the drums to beat a re- military critics entered on their duties, an treat; "thus doltishly repelling the rare English frigate, observing a great bustle fortune that had come with out-stretched among the guns, saluted them with an inarms to meet him." The soldiery were so terrogative broadside; and as there were no indignant at the conduct of the poltroon, batteries or epaulments to shelter the that the Committee of Public Safety was com- embryo heroes, who had determined not pelled to depose him. The ex-doctor gene- to hide their candle under a bushel, but to ral was succeeded by Dugommier, a brave make known their acts of noble daring and and veteran officer. On the appointment volitare per ora, they were quickly sent to of that officer, the business of the siege pro- the right-about; and as they did not feel an ceeded in earnest and efficiently. Little inclination to return "to fulfil their country's Gibraltar was taken; and the combined expectations," they furnished the camp with fleet of England and Spain, after having a fit of laughter at the rapid and dextrous exploded the magazines, and set the French shipping in the harbour on fire,* having been discovered to have weighed anchor, and to be endeavouring to get out of the roads, accompanied by a flotilla containing many thousands of the inhabitants of Toulon and of the refugees from Marseilles, who dreaded the vengeance of the convention, a general assault was made; and thus was Toulon, after four months' siege, recovered to France, and the insurrectionary spirit in the south of France wholly subdued. But the conquest was tarnished with the slaughter of many hundreds of the remaining inhabitants, for their adhesion to the fallen monarchy; and the ferocious butchery extended even to the workmen (150 in number), who had assisted in the construction of the fortifications which had been • "Nine seventy-four gun-ships and four frigates were seen blazing at the same moment in the harbour, the fire and smoke of which resembled the eruption of a volcano; while the shouts of the victors, the cries of the fugitives-many of whom had not yet cleared the shore when the republican troops had entered the city-the constant roar of the artillery, playing on the town and the retiring use they made of their heels. Two other HIS SUBSEQUENT SERVICES AND MODE OF LIFE. Not meeting with any military employment on his release, he joined his family, who then were struggling in very distressed circumstances at Marseilles. Here he fell in love with a Mademoiselle Clery (whose sister was afterwards married to his brother Joseph, and she herself became the wife of Bernadotte, and subsequently the Queen of Sweden), whom he would have married, had not his circumstances been too straitened to support a wife and supply the exigencies of a family. THE surrender of Toulon had established misfortune and the presence of danger to the reputation of Napoleon Buonaparte as a depress his spirits, or divert his mind from man of commanding abilities and a consum- its darling and appropriate pursuits. mate officer. Though a studied silence of his eminent services at the siege of Toulon had been observed in the despatches, the observation of Barras, one of the commissioners of the army, in a letter addressed to Carnot, the then French war-minister, ("I earnestly recommend you to advance this young man speedily, otherwise he will find means to advance himself,") no doubt, operated in his favour. He was accordingly made a brigadier-general, and appointed to survey, and put into a proper state of defence, the whole line of fortifications skirting the Mediterranean coast of France. Having executed the undertaking to the satisfaction of the war-minister, Carnot, he was appointed to the chief command of the artillery of the army of the Maritime Alps, serving under General Dumerbion. His services at Oneille, Del Cairo, Saorgio, and particularly in the dislodgement of the Sardinians from the narrow ravine between the mountains which separate France from Italy, known as the Col-di-Tendi, which gave the French the command of the range of the higher Maritime Alps, and thus removed the difficulties of their advance into Italy, were rewarded by the commander-inchief's declaration to the Committee of War:-"I am indebted," said he, "to the comprehensive talents of General Buonaparte for the plans which have ensured our victory." Shortly after this event, he was sent by the war-minister on a secret mission to Genoa, on matters of diplomatic importance. On his return, he was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the ambitious designs and schemes of tyranny of Robespierre, suspended from his military rank, and arraigned before the Committee of Public Safety. But after having been imprisoned a fortnight, his innocence appearing on inquiry, an order was issued for his release. When the officer who was the bearer of the order was introduced to him, he found him busy in his dungeon over the map of Lombardy;-so little power had The pawnbroker was Bourrienne's brother, Fauvelet, who, with several others, had entered into a speculation of a national auction. They received everything which those who desired to quit France wished to sell, and funds were always advanced on * On his return to Paris (1795), he solicited the war-office for employment, but his application being disregarded, he was so deficient of the means of support, as to be glad to employ himself in the office of the Topographical Committee, and for Norvins, the mapseller and publisher, in drawing maps and topographical plans. At this period of his life, his circumstances were so straitened, that, according to Bourrienne, such was his difficulty in finding daily funds to pay for his dinner, that he was under the necessity of pawning his watch. Among the curious and amusing anecdotes which his school-fellow and future secretary relates of him, were his proposals to him to take in co-partnership several houses then building in the Rue Montholou, for the purpose of sub-letting them. Such was his distress, that he and his brother Louis, the father of the present emperor, had but one coat between them, and used to wear it alternately; for it must be stated, to the eternal honour of Napoleon Buonaparte, that never, under the most trying circumstances, did he flinch from the reciprocal duties of family attachment. Folded in each other's arms they lay, during the long mornings of January, without fire and food, in a small garret, and on a wretched couch in the Rue des Fossés Montmartre, little suspecting that one of them, in less than ten months from that day, would have a terrible renown throughout France; and that the other, some years after, would the articles previous to sale. It was in this shop, at the time of the assault of the Tuileries, in August, 1792, that Napoleon Buonaparte's watch had been for some time in pawn.--Bourrienne's Memoirs. 1 have a crown bestowed on him by the same hand which now quivered with hunger and cold. It was during this frightful period of suffering, that Napoleon Buonaparte so often met with Talma, the actor, and was indebted to that great tragedian for a dinner at the Trois Fréres Provençeaux, in the Palais Royal. It was at this time, too, that he was arrested in the street by the large-boned lady of an eating-house, in the Rue de la Huchette, who exclaimed, as she shook him by the collar-" You good-fornothing little Corsican, when do you mean to pay the seven francs you owe me-pour mes fricandeaux." To obtain supplies for his necessities, his fancy was fruitful in devices. "Every day," says Bourrienne, "we conceived some new project or other." Such is generally the conduct of professional, talented men, while pining in obscurity and neglect. We have known the talented but briefless barrister, devising schemes for patent-medicines; the skilful but unemployed physician, projecting companies, railroads, &c.; and the accomplished but neglected officer, thinking of converting his sword into a pastoral staff or a crosier, or planning settlements and distributions of territory in distaut and unsettled regions. The reasons that his applications for military employment were not attended to, originated, no doubt, in the interested and partial views of those who were entrusted with the administration of that department of the public service. The president of the military committee, Aubrey, an old officer of the ancient régime, objected to his youth. Napoleon Buonaparte's reply was:-" Presence in the field of battle might be reckoned in the place of years;" a sentiment partaking of the same lofty confidence in his superiority of intellect and ability to meet and provide for emergencies, as that in the reply which he made to the same functionary, on his removal from the army of Italy to that of La Vendee, when that officer reminded him of his youth :-" A man soon grows old on the field of battle;" or that in reply to the observation of one of the directors, who hesitated about his appointment as general of the army of Italy, as being too young: "In a year I shall be either dead or old."* All his qualifications and acknow • Perhaps Aubrey's objection to the youthful pretensions of the military aspirant might have been considered to have been intended as a personal insult to Napoleon Buonaparte, as that officer had seen little or no service; and in this light, it is not im ledged military talents were, however, disregarded by the interested and partial servants of the public, and he remained unemployed. Indignant and disgusted at the treatment he received, he meditated entering the Turkish service, and with that view transmitted a proposal to the war-office to train the Turkish army, and instruct it in European tactics, so as to enable that power to resist the aggressions of Russia; at the same time soliciting permission to organise the Turkish artillery. "With the European tactics," said he, to a friend, "I will teach the Turks to pass over three centuries at once. I will impale ten regiments, if necessary, to reduce one to obedience." And he closed his remarks with the following memorable observation :-" Would it not be strange, should a Corsican soldier become King of Jerusalem." It has been well observed:-" "That go where he would, and wherever he might find a field of action, he always contemplated greatness-always anticipated obtaining the summit of power." The usual ambition of men of talent-to be somebody in the great firm of mankind, and to do something useful and meritorious in the workshop of the world's happiness, did not suit Napoleon Buonaparte's craving and restless ambition: nothing would satisfy his towering aspirations and unbounded wishes, but the mastery and subjugation of his fellow-men. This feeling took possession of his heart in early life: he cherished the hallucination; and it was his guiding-star-his exciting and consoling genius throughout his singular and eventful career. While awaiting the result of his application respecting his Turkish scheme, he was appointed to the command of a brigade of artillery in Holland; but the appointment was superseded by a course of events (in the furtherance of which, however much Napoleon Buonaparte's sense of humanity and moral obligation may be inculpated, his future interests were greatly promoted) which gave a new direction to his hopes and his prospects, and enrolled him in the order of marked and distinguished men, who have given a tone and direction to the thoughts of men calculated to improve and revolutionise the world. probable that Buonaparte considered it for when the decree passed for the unfortunate exiles (among whom was Aubrey), who had been banished to Cayenne, to be restored to their country, he excepted him from its benefits. HIS PROMOTION AND MARRIAGE. Matters remained in suspense between the two adverse parties till the following day, when 40,000 of the national guards advanced, by different streets, to the attack of the Tuileries, in which the convention held its sittings. The conventional troops were in readiness to resist them, drawn up in the Place Louis Quinze and the Place du Carousal. The artillery was planted on the bridges and places, in position, at the crossings of the streets through which the national guard must advance to the attack, and as soon as it reached the church of St. Roche, Rue St. Honoré, the fire of the artillery commenced, and at the same moment all the batteries, in every position, opened their fire, scattering grape-shot on the advancing columns and the assembled multitude, spreading death and destruction THE tyranny and usurpation of the conven- | put himself at the head of the troops in tion having become too odious and insup- Paris, and sent 800 muskets to the convenportable to regain public confidence, and tion, that they might arm themselves during ensure domestic peace and security, a re- their sittings. modelment of the government was contemplated. But the projectors, who were the original offenders, desirous of securing to themselves as large a share as possible of power, proposed, that in the choice of representatives, two-thirds of the present members of the convention should be chosen, and if that number was not elected, the deficiency should be chosen out of their own body-a proposal rejected with indignation by the higher and intelligent classes of the Parisian population, as a restriction on the freedom of election, and a violation of all social rights. The convention persisting in their arbitrary and unjust pretensions, the citizens assembled in the several sections of Paris, and declaring their hostility to their measures, proceeded to nominate electors for choosing the new members. The national guards joined in the opposition. To in every direction. The insurgent troops, oppose the insurgent sections (which were forty-eight out of the fifty-three into which Paris was sub-divided), General Menou was ordered to march, at the head of a column of troops, dissolve the assemblies, and disarm the national guard. When he arrived in the section le Pelletier, he found the national guards under the command of Danican, an old general of no great skill and reputation, drawn up at the end of the Rue Vivienne, in readiness to resist the dissolution of their assembly; and not being able to persuade that body to obey the commands of the convention, he retraced his steps to report the proceedings to his employers. after less than an hour's contest, taking to flight, the conventional forces marched into the various disaffected sections, and disarmed the inhabitants. The killed and wounded amounted to about 200 on each side. For this important service, which secured the triumph of the conventionalists, and established them in their usurped power, Napoleon Buonaparte was appointed Governor of Paris, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Interior. In the execution of the duties of this office, he formed an acquaintance destined to be of no small importance to him in his future career. This acquaintanceship originated in a sinTo remedy Menou's indecision, the Com-gular circumstance. mittee of Public Safety appointed Barras One morning, at his military levee, a boy commander-in-chief; and, on his recom- about twelve or thirteen years' old presented mendation, supported by that of the repre- himself, and entreated Napoleon Buonasentatives who had been with the army at parte, that his father's sword should be reToulon and Nice, and by others who had turned to him. His father, the late Viscompte become acquainted with the great resources Beauharnais, had been a general in the of his genius as a member of the Topogra- service of the republic, and had fallen under phical Committee, Napoleon Buonaparte the axe of the guillotine a few days before was appointed second in command, but with the death of Robespierre. "I was the virtual and entire command. Immediately on the investment of his authority, he proceeded to make preparations for carrying into execution the designs of his employers. He seized the artillery at Sablons, SO touched," says Napoleon Buonaparte," by this affectionate request, that I ordered the sword to be given to him. This boy was Eugene Beauharnais. On seeing the sword, he burst into tears. I felt so much affected |