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A memorial addressed by his father, Charles Buonaparte, to the Minister of War states that his fortune had been reduced by the failure of some enterprise in which he had engaged, and by the injustice of the Jesuits, by whom he had been deprived of an inheritance.
How could that end be gained? The old instinct of authorship returned irresistibly, and in the long intervals of easy duty at Avignon, where, as is most probable, he remained to complete the task assigned to him, Buonaparte wrote the "Supper of Beaucaire," his first literary work of real ability. As if by magic his style is utterly changed, being now concise, correct, and lucid.
The uprisings, however, had been duly described to the commissioners by Peraldi: they state as their opinion that the deputy was ill-informed and that his judgment should not stand in the way of justice to M. de Buonaparte. On July tenth the minister of war adopted the committee's report, and this fact was announced in a letter addressed by him to Captain Buonaparte!
As a lieutenant on leave, Buonaparte should of course have returned on December twenty-fifth; if, however, he were an officer of volunteers he could plead the new order. Though as yet the recruits had not come in, and no companies had been formed, the mere idea was sufficient to suggest a means for saving appearances.
It perhaps deserves to be mentioned, that on learning the situation of the sick princess, Buonaparte instantly commanded that no fire should be directed towards that part of the town. On the 10th a capitulation was signed, the French troops took possession of the city, and Napoleon once more established his headquarters in the imperial palace of Schoenbrunn.
Don Salvador had been canon of the cathedral at Malaga when Buonaparte invaded Spain. On that occasion, throwing off his ecclesiastical garb, he had assumed the rank of a colonel, and by his preachings and exhortations he had aroused the Spanish peasantry to resist the French.
A French Minister was at that time resident at Genoa, which was acknowledged by France to be in a state of neutrality and friendship: in breach of this neutrality, Buonaparte began, in the year 1796, with the demand of a loan; he afterwards, from the month of September, required and enforced the payment of a monthly subsidy, to the amount which he thought proper to stipulate: these exactions were accompanied by repeated assurances and protestations of friendship; they were followed, in May, 1797, by a conspiracy against the Government, fomented by the emissaries of the French Embassy, and conducted by the partisans of France, encouraged and afterwards protected by the French Minister.
So fierce was the resentment caused by this outrage that the plan of a joint expedition for the liberation of Sardinia from monarchical tyranny had to be modified; and Buonaparte, who was again in command of a battalion of Corsican guards, proposed that the islanders alone should proceed to attack the Madalena Isles.
Tranquillity was now restored in Paris; and the Directory had leisure to turn their attention to the affairs of the army of Italy, which were in a most confused and unsatisfactory condition. They determined to give it a new general; and Buonaparte was appointed to the splendid command.
Although therefore the old Europe and its balance of power had passed away, the new Europe which had taken its place presented a balance of power which might be regarded as even more effective; and the peace of Lunéville was in reality the recognition on both sides of a European settlement on the basis of such a balance. But in the mind of Buonaparte it was far more than this.
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