Note Back to Main Text — Chapter XVI

Napoleon Buonaparte had hastened to Nice, where five companies of his regiment were stationed, and rejoining the French army, never faltered again in his allegiance to the tricolor. Jean Duteil, brother of the young man's former patron, was in the Savoy capital, high in command. He promptly set the young artillerist at the work of completing the shore batteries. On July third and eighth, respectively, the new captain made written reports to the secretary for war at Paris, and to the director of artillery in the arsenal of Toulon. Both these papers are succinct and well written. Almost immediately Buonaparte was intrusted with a mission, probably confidential, since its exact nature is unknown, and set out for Avignon. He reached his destination almost in the moment when Carteaux began the investment of the city. It was about July sixteenth when he entered the republican camp, having arrived by devious ways, and after narrow escapes from the enemy's hands. This time he was absent from his post on duty. The works and guns at Nice being inadequate and almost worthless, he was probably sent to secure supplies from the stores of Avignon when it should be conquered. Such were the straits of the needy republican general that he immediately appointed his visitor to the command of a strong body of flying artillery. In the first attack on the town Carteaux received a check. But the insurgents were raw volunteers and seem to have felt more and more dismayed by the menacing attitude of the surrounding population: on the twenty-fifth, in the very hour of victory, they began their retreat.[36] The road to Marseilles was thus clear, and the commander unwisely opened his lines to occupy the evacuated towns on his front. Carteaux entered Avignon on the twenty-sixth; on the twenty-seventh he collected his force and departed, reaching Tarascon on the twenty-eighth, and on the twenty-ninth Beaucaire. Buonaparte, whose battery had done excellent service, advanced for some distance with the main army, but was ordered back to protect the rear by reorganizing and reconstructing the artillery park which had been dismantled in the assault on Avignon.