Александр Дюма
The Companions of Jehu
CHAPTER XLIII. LORD GRENVILLE’S REPLY
While the events we have just recorded were transpiring, and occupying the minds and newspapers of the provinces, other events, of very different import, were maturing in Paris, which were destined to occupy the minds and newspapers of the whole world.
Lord Tanlay had returned, bringing the reply of his uncle, Lord Grenville. This reply consisted of a letter addressed to M. de Talleyrand, inclosing a memorandum for the First Consul. The letter was couched in the following terms:
DOWNING STREET, February 14, 1800
Sir – I have received and placed before the King the letter which you transmitted to me through my nephew, Lord Tanlay. His Majesty, seeing no reason to depart from the long-established customs of Europe in treating with foreign states, directs me to forward you in his name the official reply which is herewith inclosed.
I have the honor to be, with the highest esteem, your very humble and obedient servant, GRENVILLE.
The letter was dry; the memorandum curt. Moreover, the First Consul’s letter to King George was autographic, and King George, not “departing from the long-established customs of Europe in treating with foreign States,” replied by a simple memorandum written by a secretary.
True, the memorandum was signed “Grenville.” It was a long recrimination against France; against the spirit of disorder, which disturbed the nation; against the fears which that spirit of disorder inspired in all Europe; and on the necessity imposed on the sovereigns of Europe, for the sake of their own safety, to repress it. In short, the memorandum was virtually a continuation of the war.
The reading of such a dictum made Bonaparte’s eyes flash with the flame which, in him, preceded his great decisions, as lightning precedes thunder.
“So, sir,” said he, turning to Lord Tanlay, “this is all you have obtained?”
“Yes, citizen First Consul.”
“Then you did not repeat verbally to your uncle all that I charged you to say to him?”
“I did not omit a syllable.”
“Did you tell him that you had lived in France three years, that you had seen her, had studied her; that she was strong, powerful, prosperous and desirous of peace while prepared for war?”
“I told him all that.”
“Did you add that the war which England is making against France is a senseless war; that the spirit of disorder of which they speak, and which, at the worst, is only the effervescence of freedom too long restrained, which it were wiser to confine to France by means of a general peace; that that peace is the sole cordon sanitaire which can prevent it from crossing our frontiers; and that if the volcano of war is lighted in France, France will spread like lava over foreign lands. Italy is delivered, says the King of England; but from whom? From her liberators. Italy is delivered, but why? Because I conquered Egypt from the Delta to the third Cataract; Italy is delivered because I was no longer in Italy. But – I am here: in a month I can be in Italy. What do I need to win her back from the Alps to the Adriatic? A single battle. Do you know what Masséna is doing in defending Genoa? Waiting for me. Ha! the sovereigns of Europe need war to protect their crowns? Well, my lord, I tell you that I will shake Europe until their crowns tremble on their heads. Want war, do they? Just wait – Bourrienne! Bourrienne!”
The door between the First Consul’s study and the secretary’s office opened precipitately, and Bourrienne rushed in, his face terrified, as though he thought Bonaparte were calling for help. But when he saw him highly excited, crumpling the diplomatic memorandum in one hand and striking with the other on his desk, while Lord Tanlay was standing calm, erect and silent near him, he understood immediately that England’s answer had irritated the First Consul.
“Did you call me, general?” he asked.
“Yes,” said the First Consul, “sit down there and write.”
Then in a harsh, jerky voice, without seeking his words, which, on the contrary, seemed to crowd through the portal of his brain, he dictated the following proclamation:
SOLDIERS! – In promising peace to the French people, I was your mouthpiece; I know your power. You are the same men who conquered the Rhine, Holland and Italy, and granted peace beneath the walls of astounded Vienna.
Soldiers, it is no longer our own frontiers that you have to defend; it is the enemy’s country you must now invade.
Soldiers, when the time comes, I shall be among you, and astounded Europe shall remember that you belong to the race of heroes!
Bourrienne raised his head, expectant, after writing the last words.
“Well, that’s all,” said Bonaparte.
“Shall I add the sacramental words: ‘Vive la République!’?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Because we have issued no proclamation during the last four months, and something may be changed in the ordinary formulas.”
“The proclamation will do as it is,” said Bonaparte, “add nothing to it.”
Taking a pen, he dashed rather than wrote his signature at the bottom of the paper, then handing it to Bourrienne, he said: “See that it appears in the ‘Moniteur’ to-morrow.”
Bourrienne left the room, carrying the proclamation with him.
Bonaparte, left alone with Lord Tanlay, walked up and down the room for a moment, as though he had forgotten the Englishman’s presence; then he stopped suddenly before him.
“My lord,” he asked, “do you think you obtained from your uncle all that another man might have obtained in your place?”
“More, citizen First Consul.”
“More! more! Pray, what have you obtained?”
“I think that the citizen First Consul did not read the royal memorandum with all the attention it deserves.”
“Heavens!” exclaimed Bonaparte, “I know it by heart.”
“Then the citizen First Consul cannot have weighed the meaning and the wording of a certain paragraph.”
“You think so?”
“I am sure of it; and if the citizen First Consul will permit me to read him the paragraph to which I allude – ”
Bonaparte relaxed his hold upon the crumpled note, and handed it to Lord Tanlay, saying: “Read it.”
Sir John cast his eyes over the document, with which he seemed to be familiar, paused at the tenth paragraph, and read:
The best and surest means for peace and security, and for their continuance, would be the restoration of that line of princes who for so many centuries have preserved to the French nation its internal prosperity and the respect and consideration of foreign countries. Such an event would have removed, and at any time will remove, the obstacles which are now in the way of negotiations and peace; it would guarantee to France the tranquil possession of her former territory, and procure for all the other nations of Europe, through a like tranquillity and peace, that security which they are now obliged to seek by other means.
“Well,” said Bonaparte, impatiently, “I have read all that, and perfectly understood it. Be Monk, labor for another man, and your victories, your renown, your genius will be forgiven you; humble yourself, and you shall be allowed to remain great!”
“Citizen First Consul,” said Lord Tanlay, “no one knows better than I the difference between you and Monk, and how far you surpass him in genius and renown.”
“Then why do you read me that?”
“I only read that paragraph,” replied Sir John, “to lead you to give to the one following its due significance.”
“Let’s hear it,” said Bonaparte, with repressed impatience.
Sir John continued:
But, however desirable such an event may be for France and for the world, it is not to this means alone that his Majesty restricts the possibility of a safe and sure pacification.
Sir John emphasized the last words.
“Ah! ah!” exclaimed Bonaparte, stepping hastily to Sir John’s side.
The Englishman continued:
His Majesty does not presume to prescribe to France her form of government, nor the hands into which she may place the necessary authority to conduct the affairs of a great and powerful nation.
“Read that again, sir,” said Bonaparte, eagerly.
“Read it yourself,” replied Sir John.
He handed him the note, and Bonaparte re-read it.
“Was it you, sir,” he asked, “who added that paragraph?”
“I certainly insisted on it.”
Bonaparte reflected.
“You are right,” he said; “a great step has been taken; the return of the Bourbons is no longer a condition sine quâ non. I am accepted, not only as a military, but also as a political power.” Then, holding out his hand to Sir John, he added: “Have you anything to ask of me, sir?”
“The only thing I seek has been asked of you by my friend Roland.”
“And I answered, sir, that I shall be pleased to see you the husband of his sister. If I were richer, or if you were less so, I would offer to dower her” – Sir John made a motion – “but as I know your fortune will suffice for two,” added Bonaparte, smiling, “or even more, I leave you the joy of giving not only happiness, but also wealth to the woman you love. Bourrienne!” he called.
Bourrienne appeared.
“I have sent it, general,” he said.
“Very good,” replied the First Consul; “but that is not what I called you for.”
“I await your orders.”
“At whatever hour of the day or night Lord Tanlay presents himself, I shall be happy to receive him without delay; you hear me, my dear Bourrienne? You hear me, my lord?”
Lord Tanlay bowed his thanks.
“And now,” said Bonaparte, “I presume you are in a hurry to be off to the Château des Noires-Fontaines. I won’t detain you, but there is one condition I impose.”
“And that is, general?”
“If I need you for another mission – ”
“That is not a condition, citizen First Consul; it is a favor.”
Lord Tanlay bowed and withdrew.
Bourrienne prepared to follow him, but Bonaparte called him back. “Is there a carriage below?” he asked.
Bourrienne looked into the courtyard. “Yes, general.”
“Then get ready and come with me.”
“I am ready, general; I have only my hat and overcoat to get, and they are in the office.”
“Then let us go,” said Bonaparte.
He took up his hat and coat, went down the private staircase, and signed to the carriage to come up. Notwithstanding Bourrienne’s haste, he got down after him. A footman opened the door; Bonaparte sprang in.
“Where are we going, general?” asked Bourrienne.
“To the Tuileries,” replied Bonaparte.
Bourrienne, amazed, repeated the order, and looked at the First Consul as if to seek an explanation; but the latter was plunged in thought, and the secretary, who at this time was still the friend, thought it best not to disturb him.
The horses started at gallop – Bonaparte’s usual mode of progression – and took the way to the Tuileries.
The Tuileries, inhabited by Louis XVI. after the days of the 5th and 6th of October, and occupied successively by the Convention and the Council of Five Hundred, had remained empty and devastated since the 18th Brumaire. Since that day Bonaparte had more than once cast his eyes on that ancient palace of royalty; but he knew the importance of not arousing any suspicion that a future king might dwell in the palace of the abolished monarchy.
Bonaparte had brought back from Italy a magnificent bust of Junius Brutus; there was no suitable place for it at the Luxembourg, and toward the end of November, Bonaparte had sent for the Republican, David, and ordered him to place the bust in the gallery of the Tuileries. Who could suppose that David, the friend of Marat, was preparing the dwelling of a future emperor by placing the bust of Cæsar’s murderer in the gallery of the Tuileries? No one did suppose, nor even suspect it.
When Bonaparte went to see if the bust were properly placed, he noticed the havoc committed in the palace of Catherine of Medicis. The Tuileries were no longer the abode of kings, it is true, but they were a national palace, and the nation could not allow one of its palaces to become dilapidated. Bonaparte sent for citizen Lecomte, the architect, and ordered him to clean the Tuileries. The word might be taken in both senses – moral and physical.
The architect was requested to send in an estimate of the cost of the cleaning. It amounted to five hundred thousand francs. Bonaparte asked if for that sum, the Tuileries could be converted into a suitable “palace for the government.” The architect replied that the sum named would suffice not only to restore the Tuileries to their former condition, but to make them habitable.
A habitable palace, that was all Bonaparte wanted. How should he, a Republican, need regal luxury? The “palace of the government” ought to be severely plain, decorated with marbles and statues only. But what ought those statues to be? It was the First Consul’s duty to select them.
Accordingly, Bonaparte chose them from the three great ages and the three great nations: from the Greeks, from the Romans, from France and her rivals. From the Greeks he chose Alexander and Demosthenes; the genius of conquest and the genius of eloquence. From the Romans he chose Scipio, Cicero, Cato, Brutus and Cæsar, placing the great victim side by side with the murderer, as great almost as himself. From the modern world he chose Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, the great Condé, Duguay-Trouin, Marlborough, Prince Eugene, and the Maréchal de Saxe; and, finally, the great Frederick and George Washington – false philosophy upon a throne, and true wisdom founding a free state.
To these he added warlike heroes – Dampierre, Dugommier, Joubert – to prove that, while he did not fear the memory of a Bourbon in the great Condé, neither was he jealous of his brothers-in-arms, the victims of a cause already no longer his.
Matters were in this state at the period of which we are now speaking; that is, the last of February, 1800. The Tuileries had been cleaned, the busts were in their niches, the statues were on their pedestals; and only a favorable occasion was wanting.
That occasion came when the news of Washington’s death was received. The founder of the liberty of the United States had ceased to breathe on the 14th of December, 1799.
It was that event of which Bonaparte was thinking, when Bourrienne saw by the expression of his face that he must be left entirely to the reflections which absorbed him.
The carriage stopped before the Tuileries. Bonaparte sprang out with the same haste with which he had entered it; went rapidly up the stairs, and through the apartments, examining more particularly those which had been inhabited by Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette. In the private study of Louis XVI. he stopped short.
“Here’s where we will live, Bourrienne,” he said, suddenly, as if the latter had followed him through the mental labyrinth in which he wandered, following the thread of Ariadne which we call thought. “Yes, we will lodge here; the Third Consul can have the Pavilion of Flora, and Cambacérès will remain at the Chancellerie.”
“In that way,” said Bourrienne, “when the time comes, you will have only one to turn out.”
“Come, come,” said Bonaparte, catching Bourrienne by the ear, “that’s not bad.”
“When shall we move in, general?” asked Bourrienne.
“Oh, not to-morrow; it will take at least a week to prepare the Parisians to see me leave the Luxembourg for the Tuileries.”
“Eight days,” exclaimed Bourrienne; “that will do.”
“Especially if we begin at once. Come, Bourrienne, to the Luxembourg.”
With the rapidity that characterized all his movements when serious matters were in question, he passed through the suites of apartments he had already visited, ran down the stairs, and sprang into the carriage, calling out: “To the Luxembourg!”
“Wait, wait,” cried Bourrienne, still in the vestibule; “general, won’t you wait for me?”
“Laggard!” exclaimed Bonaparte. And the carriage started, as it had come, at a gallop.
When Bonaparte re-entered his study he found the minister of police awaiting him.
“Well, what now, citizen Fouché? You look upset. Have I, perchance, been assassinated?”
“Citizen First Consul,” said the minister, “you seemed to attach the utmost importance to the destruction of those bands who call themselves the Companions of Jehu.”
“Evidently, since I sent Roland himself to pursue them. Have you any news of them?”
“We have.”
“From whom?”
“Their leader himself.”
“Their leader?”
“He has had the audacity to send me a report of their last exploit.”
“Against whom?”
“The fifty thousand francs you sent to the Saint-Bernard fathers.”
“What became of them?”
“The fifty thousand francs?”
“Yes.”
“They are in the possession of those brigands, and their leader informs me he will transfer them shortly to Cadoudal.”
“Then Roland is killed?”
“No.”
“How do you mean, no?”
“My agent is killed; Colonel Maurice is killed; but your aide-de-camp is safe and sound.”
“Then he will hang himself,” said Bonaparte.
“What good would that do? The rope would break; you know his luck.”
“Or his misfortune, yes – Where is the report?”
“You mean the letter?”
“Letter, report, thing – whatever it was that told you this news.”
The minister handed the First Consul a paper inclosed in a perfumed envelope.
“What’s this?”
“The thing you asked for.”
Bonaparte read the address: “To the citizen Fouché, minister of police. Paris.” Then he opened the letter, which contained the following.
CITIZEN MINISTER – I have the honor to inform you that the fifty thousand francs intended for the monks of Saint-Bernard came into our hands on the night of February 25, 1800 (old style), and that they will reach those of citizen Cadoudal within the week.
The affair was well-managed, save for the deaths of your agent and Colonel Saint-Maurice. As for M. Roland de Montrevel, I have the satisfaction of informing you that nothing distressing has befallen him. I did not forget that he was good enough to receive me at the Luxembourg.
I write you, citizen minister, because I presume that M. Roland de Montrevel is just now too much occupied in pursuing us to write you himself. But I am sure that at his first leisure moment you will receive from him a report containing all the details into which I cannot enter for lack of time and facilities for writing.
In exchange for the service I render you, citizen minister, I will ask you to do one for me; namely, inform Madame de Montrevel, without delay, that her son is in safety. MORGAN.
Maison-Blanche, on the road from Mâcon to Lyons, Saturday, 9 P.M.
“Ha, the devil!” said Bonaparte; “a bold scamp!” Then he added, with a sigh: “What colonels and captains those men would make me!”
“What are your orders, citizen First Consul?” asked the minister of police.
“None; that concerns Roland. His honor is at stake; and, as he is not killed, he will take his revenge.”
“Then the First Consul will take no further notice of the affair?”
“Not for the present, at any rate.” Then, turning to his secretary, he added, “We have other fish to fry, haven’t we, Bourrienne?”
Bourrienne nodded affirmatively.
“When does the First Consul wish to see me again?” asked the minister.
“To-night, at ten o’clock. We move out in eight days.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the Tuileries.”
Fouché gave a start of amazement.
“Against your opinion, I know,” said the First Consul; “but I’ll take the whole business on myself; you have only to obey.”
Fouché bowed, and prepared to leave the room.
“By the way!” exclaimed Bonaparte.
Fouché turned round.
“Don’t forget to notify Madame de Montrevel that her son is safe and sound; that’s the least you can do for citizen Morgan after the service he has rendered you.”
And he turned his back on the minister of police, who retired, biting his lips till the blood came.
CHAPTER XLIV. CHANGE OF RESIDENCE
That same day, the First Consul, left alone with Bourrienne, dictated the following order, addressed to the Consulate guard and to the army at large:
Washington is dead! That great man fought against tyranny. He consolidated the liberty of America. His memory will ever be dear to the French people, to all free men in both hemispheres, but especially to the French soldiers, who, like Washington and his soldiers, have fought for Liberty and Equality. Consequently, the First Consul orders that the flags and banners of the Republic shall be hung with crape for ten days.
But the First Consul did not intend to confine himself to this order of the day.
Among the means he took to facilitate his removal from the Luxembourg to the Tuileries was one of those fêtes by which he knew, none better, how to amuse the eyes and also direct the minds of the spectator. This fête was to take place at the Invalides, or, as they said in those days, the Temple of Mars. A bust of Washington was to be crowned, and the flags of Aboukir were to be received from the hands of General Lannes.
It was one of those combinations which Bonaparte thoroughly understood – a flash of lightning drawn from the contact of contrasting facts. He presented the great man of the New World, and a great victory of the old; young America coupled with the palms of Thebes and Memphis.
On the day fixed for the ceremony, six thousand cavalry were in line from the Luxembourg to the Invalides. At eight o’clock, Bonaparte mounted his horse in the main courtyard of the Consular palace; issuing by the Rue de Tournon he took the line of the quays, accompanied by a staff of generals, none of whom were over thirty-five years of age.
Lannes headed the procession; behind him were sixty Guides bearing the sixty captured flags; then came Bonaparte about two horse’s-lengths ahead of his staff.
The minister of war, Berthier, awaited the procession under the dome of the temple. He leaned against a statue of Mars at rest, and the ministers and councillors of state were grouped around him. The flags of Denain and Fontenoy, and those of the first campaign in Italy, were already suspended from the columns which supported the roof. Two centenarian “Invalids” who had fought beside Maréchal Saxe were standing, one to the right and one to the left of Berthier, like caryatides of an ancient world, gazing across the centuries. To the right, on a raised platform, was the bust of Washington, which was now to be draped with the flags of Aboukir. On another platform, opposite to the former, stood Bonaparte’s armchair.
On each side of the temple were tiers of seats in which was gathered all the elegant society of Paris, or rather that portion of it which gave its adhesion to the order of ideas then to be celebrated.
When the flags appeared, the trumpets blared, their metallic sounds echoing through the arches of the temple,
Lannes entered first. At a sign from him, the Guides mounted two by two the steps of the platform and placed the staffs of the flags in the holders prepared for them. During this time Bonaparte took his place in the chair,
Then Lannes advanced to the minister of war, and, in that voice that rang out so clearly on the battlefield, crying “Forward!” he said:
“Citizen minister, these are the flags of the Ottoman army, destroyed before your eyes at Aboukir. The army of Egypt, after crossing burning deserts, surviving thirst and hunger, found itself before an enemy proud of his numbers and his victories, and believing that he saw an easy prey in our troops, exhausted by their march and incessant combats. He had yet to learn that the French soldier is greater because he knows how to suffer than because he knows how to vanquish, and that his courage rises and augments in danger. Three thousand Frenchmen, as you know, fell upon eighteen thousand barbarians, broke their ranks, forced them back, pressed them between our lines and the sea; and the terror of our bayonets is such that the Mussulmans, driven to choose a death, rushed into the depths of the Mediterranean.
“On that memorable day hung the destinies of Egypt, France and Europe, and they were saved by your courage,
“Allied Powers! if you dare to violate French territory, and if the general who was given back to us by the victory of Aboukir makes an appeal to the nation – Allied Powers! I say to you, that your successes would be more fatal to you than disasters! What Frenchman is there who would not march to victory again under the banners of the First Consul, or serve his apprenticeship to fame with him?”
Then, addressing the “Invalids,” for whom the whole lower gallery had been reserved, he continued in a still more powerful voice:
“And you, brave veterans, honorable victims of the fate of battles, you will not be the last to flock under the orders of him who knows your misfortunes and your glory, and who now delivers to your keeping these trophies won by your valor. Ah, I know you, veterans, you burn to sacrifice the half of your remaining lives to your country and its freedom!”
This specimen of the military eloquence of the conqueror of Montebello was received with deafening applause. Three times the minister of war endeavored to make reply; and three times the bravos cut him short. At last, however, silence came, and Berthier expressed himself as follows:
“To raise on the banks of the Seine these trophies won on the banks of the Nile; to hang beneath the domes of our temples, beside the flags of Vienna, of Petersburg, of London, the banners blessed in the mosques of Byzantium and Cairo; to see them here, presented by the same warriors, young in years, old in glory, whom Victory has so often crowned – these things are granted only to Republican France.
“Yet this is but a part of what he has done, that hero, in the flower of his age covered with the laurels of Europe, he, who stood a victor before the Pyramids, from the summits of which forty centuries looked down upon him while, surrounded by his warriors and learned men, he emancipated the native soil of art and restored to it the lights of civilization.
“Soldiers, plant in this temple of the warrior virtues those ensigns of the Crescent, captured on the rocks of Canopus by three thousand Frenchmen from eighteen thousand Ottomans, as brave as they were barbarous. Let them bear witness, not to the valor of the French soldier – the universe itself resounds to that – but to his unalterable constancy, his sublime devotion. Let the sight of these banners console you, veteran warriors, you, whose bodies, gloriously mutilated on the field of honor, deprive your courage of other exercise than hope and prayer. Let them proclaim from that dome above us, to all the enemies of France, the influence of genius, the value of the heroes who captured them; forewarning of the horrors of war all those who are deaf to our offers of peace. Yes, if they will have war, they shall have it – war, terrible and unrelenting!
“The nation, satisfied, regards the Army of the East with pride.
“That invincible army will learn with joy that the First Consul is watchful of its glory. It is the object of the keenest solicitude on the part of the Republic. It will hear with pride that we have honored it in our temples, while awaiting the moment when we shall imitate, if need be, on the fields of Europe, the warlike virtues it has displayed on the burning sands of Africa and Asia.
“Come, in the name of that army, intrepid general, come in the name of those heroes among whom you now appear, and receive an embrace in token of the national gratitude.
“And in the moment when we again take up our arms in defence of our independence (if the blind fury of kings refuses the peace we offer), let us cast a branch of laurel on the ashes of Washington, that hero who freed America from the yoke of our worst and most implacable enemy. Let his illustrious shade tell us of the glory which follows a nation’s liberator beyond the grave!”
Bonaparte now came down from his platform, and in the name of France was embraced by Berthier.
M. de Fontanes, who was appointed to pronounce the eulogy on Washington, waited courteously until the echoes of the torrent of applause, which seemed to fall in cascades through the vast amphitheatre, had died away. In the midst of these glorious individualities, M. de Fontanes was a curiosity, half political, half literary. After the 18th Fructidor he was proscribed with Suard and Laharpe; but, being perfectly hidden in a friend’s house, and never going out except at night, he managed to avoid leaving France. Nevertheless, an accident, impossible to foresee, had betrayed him. He was knocked down one night on the Place du Carrousel by a runaway horse, and was recognized by a policeman, who ran to his assistance. But Fouché, who was at once informed, not only of his presence in France, but also of his actual hiding-place, pretended to know nothing of him.
A few days after the 18th Brumaire, Maret, who became later the Duc de Bassano, Laplace, who continued to be simply a man of science, and Regnault de Saint-Jean-d’Angely, who died mad, spoke to the First Consul of M. de Fontanes and of his presence in Paris,
“Present him to me,” replied the First Consul simply.
M. de Fontanes was presented to Bonaparte, who, recognizing his supple nature and the unctuous flattery of his eloquence, chose him to deliver the eulogy on Washington, and perhaps something of his own at the same time.
M. de Fontanes’ address was too long to be reported here; all that we shall say about it is, that it was precisely what Bonaparte desired.
That evening there was a grand reception at the Luxembourg. During the ceremony a rumor was spread that the First Consul contemplated removing to the Tuileries. Persons who were either bold or curious ventured on a few words to Josephine. She, poor woman, who still saw before her the tumbrel and the scaffold of Marie Antoinette, had an instinctive horror of all that might connect her with royalty; she therefore hesitated to reply and referred all questions to her husband.
Then another rumor began to be bruited about which served as a counterpoise to the former. Murat, it was said, had asked the hand of Mademoiselle Caroline Bonaparte in marriage. But this marriage was not without its obstacles; Bonaparte had had a quarrel, lasting over a year, with the man who aspired to the honor of becoming his brother-in-law. The cause of this quarrel will seem rather strange to our readers.
Murat, the lion of the army; Murat, whose courage had become proverbial; Murat, who might well have been taken by a sculptor as a model for the god of war; Murat, on one occasion, when he must have slept ill or breakfasted badly, had a moment of weakness.
