indulgence for, in Saliceti's view, there was still political mileage to be
made out of exploiting his military talent. To his credit, Saliceti urged
that Napoleon's continuing presence at the front was necessary if the
Army of Italy was to succeed. Even before Saliceti had his change of
mind, General Dumerbion had been telling the deputes-en-mission and the
War Ministry that he could not afford to lose an officer of Bonaparte's
calibre.
Once restored to the Army, Napoleon continued to submit memoranda
on his Piedmontese project, this time dealing with a threatened Anglo
Piedmontese assault on French-held Savona, but Carnot, firmly in the
saddle after Thermidor, rejected his ideas even more forthrightly than
before. Not even Dumerbion's victory against the Austrians at the first
Battle of Dego (September 1794) could shake him. Nevertheless
Dumerbion sent envoys to Paris to plead for a general offensive in Italy
and wrote that the military achievements of 1794 were entirely due to
Bonaparte: 'It is to the ability of the General of Artillery that I owe the
clever combinations which have secured our success.' The most Carnot
would do was to hold out hopes of an expedition against Corsica. From
December 1794 to February 1795, therefore, Napoleon was in Nice,
Marseilles and Toulon, preparing an expedition that he would never take
part in.
1794 saw some significant developments in the Bonaparte family
dynamic and in Napoleon's personal circumstances. In August Joseph
married Julie Clary, but Napoleon was still in Genoa and could not
attend the wedding. If his older brother had secured his position by
marrying money, Louis seemed to be faring much better than the cross
grained Lucien. Napoleon appointed Louis to his staff, and the young
man saw action against the Piedmontese in the Alps before being posted
to a coastal battery at St Tropez. Napoleon himself, after a long period
apparently in limbo, rediscovered his sexuality. Soon after the flight from
Corsica there was another encounter with a prostitute, this time in the
stews of Toulon, from which Napoleon emerged complaining of the
'itch'. The evidence is tenuous, but he seems to have scratched and torn
at his skin, eventually bringing on eczema.
There was a heavy flirtation, at the very least, with Emilie, daughter of
the Comte de Laurenti, in Nice, just before his arrest. It is also certain
that on 21 September 1794 he made the acquaintance of aM. Turreau de
Lignieres, yet another political commissar, and his charming and
vivacious wife, that he carried on a heavy flirtation with Madame, and
may even have made her his mistress. Certainly he had intercourse with
her either in 1794 or 1795, and there were even rumours that he fathered
marcin
(Marcin)
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