Produced by David Widger
By LOUIS ANTOINE FAUVELET DE BOURRIENNE
His Private Secretary
Edited by R. W. Phipps
Colonel, Late Royal Artillery
1891
CONTENTS:
Chapter V. to Chapter XIV. 1798
1797.
Signature of the preliminaries of peace—Fall of Venice—My arrival and reception at Leoben—Bonaparte wishes to pursue his success— The Directory opposes him—He wishes to advance on Vienna—Movement of the army of the Sambre-et-Meuse—Bonaparte's dissatisfaction— Arrival at Milan—We take up our residence at Montebello—Napoleon's judgment respecting Dandolo and Melzi.
I joined Bonaparte at Leoben on the 19th of April, the day after thesignature of the preliminaries of peace. These preliminaries resembledin no respect the definitive treaty of Campo Formio. The stillincomplete fall of the State of Venice did not at that time present anavailable prey for partition. All was arranged afterwards. Woe to thesmall States that come in immediate contact with two colossal empireswaging war!
Here terminated my connection with Bonaparte as a comrade and equal, andthose relations with him commenced in which I saw him suddenly great,powerful, and surrounded with homage and glory. I no longer addressedhim as I had been accustomed to do. I appreciated too well his personalimportance. His position placed too great a social distance between himand me not to make me feel the necessity of fashioning my demeanouraccordingly. I made with pleasure, and without regret, the easysacrifice of the style of familiar companionship and other littleprivileges. He said, in a loud voice, when I entered the salon where hewas surrounded by the officers who formed his brilliant staff, "I am gladto see you, at last"—"Te voila donc, enfin;", but as soon as we werealone he made me understand that he was pleased with my reserve, andthanked me for it. I was immediately placed at the head of his Cabinet.I spoke to him the same evening respecting the insurrection of theVenetian territories, of the dangers which menaced the French, and ofthose which I had escaped, etc. "Care thou[*] nothing about it," said he;
[*]—[He used to 'tutoyer' me in this familiar manner until his return to Milan.]—
"those rascals shall pay for it. Their republic has had its day, and isdone." This republic was, however, still existing, wealthy and powerful.These words brought to my recollection what I had read in a work by oneGabriel Naude, who wrote during the reign of Louis XIII. for Cardinal deBagin: "Do you see Constantinople, which flatters itself with being theseat of a double empire; and Venice, which glories in her stability of athousand years? Their day will come."
In the first conversation which Bonaparte had with me, I thought I couldperceive that he was not very well satisfied with the preliminaries. Hewould have liked to advance with his army to Vienna. He did not concealthis from me. Before he offered peace to Prince Charles, he wrote to theDirectory that he intended to pursue his success, but that for thispurpose he reckoned on the co-operation of the armies of the Sambre-et-Meuse and the Rhine. The Directory replied that he must not reckon on adiversion in Germany, and that the armies of the Sambre-et-Meuse and theRhine were not to pass that river. A resolution so unexpected—a declaration so contr