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Toulon offered them safety; it seemed impregnable, as much by its situation as by the number and strength of its defenders. It could also defy any siege, since the sea was open, and it could by this channel be provisioned through the English and Spanish fleet. No one trembled before the little army of seventeen thousand men which, under General Carteaux, had invested Toulon.
Obliged to make his escape in August from that island, to save himself, he joined the army of General Carteaux, then marching against the Marseilles insurgents, whence he was sent by the National Convention with Barras, Gasparin, Robespierre the younger, and Ricrod, as a representative of the people, to the army before Toulon, where, as well as at Marseilles, he shared in all the atrocities committed by his colleagues and by Bonaparte; for which, after the death of the Robespierres, he was arrested with him as a terrorist.
The Convention, irritated that its orders should not have been immediately carried out, had in its despotic power recalled from his command General Carteaux, who could not succeed in capturing Toulon, and had appointed as chief of battalion the young captain of artillery, Napoleon Bonaparte, on account of his bravery in capturing some dangerous redoubts.
In the dialogue the officer gives most excellent military advice to the representative of Marseilles on the impossibility of their resisting the old soldiers of Carteaux. The Marseilles citizen argues but feebly, and is alarmed at the officer's representations; while his threat to call in the Spaniards turns the other speakers against him.
Admiral Hood entered the town in the name of Louis XVII., whom he proclaimed king, disarmed the fleet, sent for eight thousand Spaniards by sea, occupied the surrounding forts, and forced Carteaux, who was advancing against Toulon, to fall back on Marseilles. Notwithstanding this check, the conventionalists succeeded in isolating the insurrection, and this was a great point.
The Convention now appointed Barras to the command, while Buonaparte, Brune, Carteaux, Dupont, Loison, Vachot, and Vézu were charged to serve under him. Such was the decree of the Convention, which therefore refutes Napoleon's later claim that he was in command, and that of his admirers that he was second in command.
In the dialogue the officer gives most excellent military advice to the representative of Marseilles on the impossibility of their resisting the old soldiers of Carteaux. The Marseilles citizen argues but feebly, and is alarmed at the officer's representations; while his threat to call in the Spaniards turns the other speakers against him.
Finally the wrangling of all concerned cried to heaven, and on October twenty-third Carteaux was transferred to the Army of Italy with headquarters at Nice. He left for his new post on November seventh, and five days later his successor appeared. In the interim the nominal commander was Lapoype, really Salicetti prompted by Buonaparte.
He found them in disorder: their commander, Carteaux, had left the easel to learn the art of war, and was ignorant of the range of his few cannon; Dommartin, their artillery commander, had been disabled by a wound; and the Commissioners of the Convention, who were charged to put new vigour into the operations, were at their wits' end for lack of men and munitions.
At the moment this speech was delivered Admiral Lord Hood had just captured Toulon, while Marseilles was being attacked by Carteaux at the head of an army acting for the Convention. Coburg, commanding the Austrian forces in the Netherlands, was gaining a series of minor successes, and his cavalry was not much more than four days' march from Paris.
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