to Turkey came to life again. The bureaucratic muddle at the Ministry of
War had been sorted out and passed to the Commission of the Exterior,
who now informed him that his proposal to go to Turkey as head of a
military mission to the Sultan had been approved. But there was still a
snag. He had not informed the Committee of Public Safety of his
Turkish application. Having just stretched a point and given him a
prestigious post, the Committee was offended at being approached with
this fresh request and turned it down.
Perhaps this contretemps was still in the Committee's mind a few
weeks later, or perhaps it was simply a change in the personnel on the
Committee, but on IS September Napoleon was informed that he had
been struck off the list of generals. The reason given was his refusal to
serve in the Vendee campaign, but this was grossly illogical for, if the
argument was valid, he should never have been offered the post in the
Topographical Bureau in the first place. His position was now the worst
ever, and for three weeks he was in desperate straits, beset by pressing
financial worries.
Foreseeing now that all his ambitions might come to naught, he
decided to reactivate the relationship with Desiree. She must have been
surprised, after all the previous cold missives (in one of which he told
her, 'If you love someone else, you must yield to your feelings') to receive
a warm and enthusiastic screed, talking excitedly of his plans for
introducing her to Parisian society and adding: 'Let us hurry, beloved
Eugenie, time flies, old age is almost upon us.' But after that, nothing. In
the meantime Napoleon's career had taken another, successful twist, and
he no longer needed Desiree. If we judge from his conscious actions
alone, Napoleon's treatment of Desiree seems despicable. To apply for
service in Turkey even while he spoke to a seventeen-year-old of
introducing her to high society, denotes a secretive, unscrupulous,
duplicitous and chillingly ambitious personality.
Yet if Napoleon in late September stared career disaster in the face, his
protector Barras confronted an even more serious situation, one where his
very life was in jeopardy. A new constitution on 2I June I795 placed
executive power in the hands of a five-man 'Directory' and vested
legislative authority in a lower Chamber of 500 and an upper house of
'Ancients'. But the Decrees of 22 and 30 August I795 - the so-called
'Decree of Two-Thirds' - stipulated that two-thirds of the new assembly
had to be chosen from members of the old Convention; the intention was
to protect the new men of property and prevent royalists returning to
power.
On I I V endemiaire (3 October I 79 5 ), led by the royalist Le Peletier,
marcin
(Marcin)
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