Note Back to Main Text — Chapter XXII

But the vista of an Eastern career temporarily vanished. The new constitution, adopted, as already stated, on August twenty-second, could not become operative until after the elections. On August thirty-first Buonaparte's plan for the conduct of the coming Italian campaign was read by the Convention committee, found satisfactory, and adopted. It remains in many respects the greatest of all Napoleon's military papers, its only fault being that no genius inferior to his own could carry it out. At intervals some strategic authority revives the charge that this plan was bodily appropriated from the writings of Maillebois, the French general who led his army to disaster in Italy during 1746. There is sufficient evidence that Buonaparte read Maillebois, and any reader may see the resemblances of the two plans. But the differences, at first sight insignificant, are as vital as the differences of character in the two men. Like the many other charges of plagiarism brought against Napoleon by pedants, this one overlooks the difference between mediocrity and genius in the use of materials. It is not at all likely that the superiors of Buonaparte were ignorant of the best books concerning the invasion of Italy or of their almost contemporary history. They brought no charges of plagiarism for the excellent reason that there is none, and they were impressed by the suggestions of their general. It is even possible that Buonaparte formed his plan before reading Maillebois. Volney declared he had heard it read and commentated by its author shortly after his return from Genoa and Nice.[52] The great scholar was already as profoundly impressed as a year later Carnot, and now the war commission. A few days later the writer and author of the plan became aware of the impression he had made: it seemed clear that he had a reality in hand worth every possibility in the Orient. He therefore wrote to Joseph that he was going to remain in Paris, explaining, as if incidentally, that he could thus be on the lookout for any desirable vacancy in the consular service, and secure it, if possible, for him.