new regime, the Assembly abolished the names of regiments, which were
henceforth to be designated only by numbers. The La Fere became the
First Regiment. Napoleon's new regiment, the Fourth, was formerly
known as the Grenoble regiment. Napoleon once again showed himself
scarcely to be a man of the 'new' rationalistic ideology of the Revolution,
for he had a powerful sentimental attachment to the La Fere, and even
petitioned to stay where he was. But the order was confirmed, so on 14
June he left Auxonne.
He arrived in Valence on r6 June and took his old room with Mile
Bou. Once again he tried to involve Louis in his ambitions as a polymath,
introducing the boy to astronomy, law, statistics, English politics,
Merovingian history and the writings of Racine, Corneille and Rousseau.
Yet Napoleon could not quite be the recluse of old, for the pace of events
at Paris was forcing all Army officers to decide where they stood
politically. Four days after Napoleon joined his new regiment at Valence,
Louis XVI was involved in the disastrous flight to Varennes, which was
the beginning of the end for the monarchy. As a result of the Varennes
imbroglio, all Army officers were compelled to take a new oath, to the
new Constitution and the National Assembly: to maintain the Constitu
tion against all enemies internal and external, to resist invasion and to
obey no orders except those validated by the Assembly's decrees; the oath
had to be written by each officer in his own hand and signed by him.
The oath caused schism in the Army, setting brother against brother,
friend against friend. For example, Desaix, Napoleon's greatest general in
later years, threw in his lot with the new regime, while his two brothers
resigned. The net result was that royalist officers resigned in droves,
opening up thousands of vacancies in the officer class and giving meaning
to the Revolutionary ideal of social mobility. Many joined the emigres
abroad. Thirty-two officers in the 4th Regiment refused to take the oath,
but Napoleon signed his on^6 July. He had the reputation of being an
ultrapolitical, overserious officer and had to pay heavy fines for violating
the mess code against talking shop; because of his outspoken political
views some of his comrades refused to speak to him and others would not
sit next to him at ta ble.
Napoleon joined the Club of Friends of the Constitution, the Jacobin
society of Valence. There was an ali-day meeting of two hundred
members on 3 July which Napoleon attended. As yet, however, he was
still running with the hare and the hounds, for on 25 August he
ostentatiously celebrated Louis XVI's birthday with his brother officers
at the Three Pigeons.
Napoleon was by now bored and restless, and his workaholic reading
marcin
(Marcin)
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