Note Back to Main Text — Chapter XVI

At last, then, the leader had shown himself in seizing the salient elements of a complicated situation, and the man of affairs had found a style in which to express his clear-cut ideas. When the tide turns it rises without interruption. Buonaparte's pamphlet was scarcely written before its value was discerned; for at that moment arrived one of those legations now representing the sovereignty of the Convention in every field of operations. This one was a most influential committee of three—Escudier, Ricord, and the younger brother of Robespierre. Accompanying them was a commission charged to renew the commissary stores in Corsica for the few troops still holding out in that island. Salicetti was at its head; the other member was Gasparin. Buonaparte, we may infer, found easy access to the favor of his compatriot Salicetti, and "The Supper of Beaucaire" was heard by the plenipotentiaries with attention. Its merit was immediately recognized, as is said, both by Gasparin and by the younger Robespierre; in a few days the pamphlet was published at the expense of the state.[38] Of Buonaparte's life between July twenty-ninth and September twelfth, 1793, there are the most conflicting accounts. Some say he was at Marseilles, others deny it. His brother Joseph thought he was occupied in collecting munitions and supplies for the Army of Italy. His earliest biographer declares that he traveled by way of Lyons and Auxonne to Paris, returning by the same route to Avignon, and thence journeying to Ollioules near Toulon. From the army headquarters before that city Salicetti wrote on September twenty-sixth that while Buonaparte was passing on his way to rejoin the Army of Italy, the authorities in charge of the siege changed his destination and put him in command of the heavy artillery to replace Dommartin, incapacitated for service by a wound. It has been hinted by both the suspicious and the credulous writers on the period that the young man was employed on some secret mission. This might be expected from those who attribute demonic qualities to the child of destiny from earliest infancy, but there is no slightest evidence to sustain the claim. Quite possibly the lad relapsed into the queer restless ways of earlier life. It is evident he was thwarted in his hope of transfer to the Army of the Rhine. Unwilling as he was to serve in Italy, he finally turned his lagging footsteps thither. Perhaps, as high authorities declare, it was at Marseilles that his compatriot Cervoni persuaded him to go as far at least as Toulon, though Salicetti and Buonaparte himself declared later that they met and arranged the matter at Nice.