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Updated: June 3, 2025
Such is the truth about Buonaparte's appointment to the Army of Italy. How much had happened since the early summer of 1795, when he had barely the means to pay his way to Paris! A sure instinct had drawn him to that hot-bed of intrigues. He had played a desperate game, risking his commission in order that he might keep in close touch with the central authority.
Better news of him, and the hope that the rumours of war were unfounded, made us suspend our packing. M. Le Breton called, and said he was sure of knowing before that evening the truth as to Buonaparte's warlike intentions, and that if Mr. Edgeworth met him at a friend's that night, he would know by his suddenly putting on his hat that war was imminent.
But in the spring it was the then famous but since forgotten Abbé Raynal of whom he became a devotee. At the first blush it seems as if Buonaparte's studies were irregular and haphazard. It is customary to attribute slender powers of observation and undefined purposes to childhood and youth.
How much of this statement is true we know not: it was openly made at the time in one of Buonaparte's bulletins and, what is of more moment, he appears to have acted on the belief that Savary told the truth. Having, ere he received it, advanced several leagues beyond the chosen field of battle, near Austerlitz, he forthwith retreated on that position, with a studied semblance of confusion.
On the thirtieth there was a formidable sally from the town directed against Buonaparte's batteries. In the force were two thousand three hundred and fifty men: about four hundred British, three hundred Sardinians, two hundred and fifty French, and seven hundred each of Neapolitans and Spanish. They were commanded by General Dundas.
The interest of the events above described lies, not in their intrinsic importance, but in the signal proof which they afford of Buonaparte's wondrous endowments of mind and will. In a losing cause and in a petty sphere he displays all the qualities which, when the omens were favourable, impelled him to the domination of a Continent.
The course of studies was a continuation of that at Brienne, and there were twenty-one instructors in the various branches of mathematics, history, geography, and languages. De l'Esguille endorsed one of Buonaparte's exercises in history with the remark: "Corsican by nation and character. He will go far if circumstances favor."
Buonaparte's last shift in the treatment of his book was most undignified and petty. With the unprincipled resentment of despair, in want of money, not of advice, he entirely remodeled it for the third time, its chapters being now put as fragmentary traditions into the mouth of a Corsican mountaineer.
Dombrowski and Wibichi, two Polish officers in Buonaparte's own army, sent forward from Berlin, on the 8th of the same month, a proclamation, which commenced in these words: "Poles! Napoleon, the Great, the Invincible, enters Poland with an army of 300,000 men. Without wishing to fathom the mystery of his views, let us strive to merit his magnanimity.
The French fleet arrived at Alexandria on the 1st of July, and Brueys, not being able to enter the port, which time and neglect had ruined, moored his ships in Aboukir Bay, in a strong and compact line of battle; the headmost vessel, according to his own account, being as close as possible to a shoal on the N.W., and the rest of the fleet forming a kind of curve along the line of deep water, so as not to be turned by any means in the S.W. By Buonaparte's desire he had offered a reward of 10,000 livres to any pilot of the country who would carry the squadron in, but none could be found who would venture to take charge of a single vessel drawing more than twenty feet.
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