programmes gave way to visits, to Grenoble, Tain, Tournu. One of his
excursions had more point, for he visited General du Teil at his chateau
of Pommiers and came away with yet another dispensation for leave, this
time on the grounds that Archdeacon Lucien was dying. Behind this
seemingly innocent visit was great Machiavellian calculation. On 4
August 1791, finding itself short of troops, the National Assembly
authorized the raising of volunteer battalions in each departement. It was
also decreed that serving officers could hold posts in such battalions
without forfeiting their regular army rank. Napoleon applied to his new
colonel, Campagnol, for leave, speaking vaguely of family business, but
Campagnol turned him down, almost certainly because Napoleon had
already spent thirty-two months of his first six years' service on leave.
The ambitious young lieutenant simply went above his head to du Teil,
who was now Inspector-General of Artillery.
The likelihood is that the Bonaparte brothers set off for Corsica, and a
certificate from the municipality of Ajaccio shows Napoleon to have
landed there in September, but historians have raised the difficulty that
his name also appears as being among those present at a review of his
regiment on 30 October. The most likely explanation is that some
friendly officers covered for him to avoid becoming ensnarled in Army
bureaucracy, perhaps even calling out 'present' when his name was called.
Certain it is that by 16 October he and Louis were back in Ajaccio, at the
Archdeacon's bedside.
There is an apocryphal sound to the story in Joseph's memoirs that the
dying Lucien said: 'Napoleon, you will be a great man,' and then bade
Joseph defer to him. On the other hand, Napoleon did later refer to the
deathbed scene as 'like Jacob and Esau'. But there was nothing mythical
or apocryphal about the money Lucien left the Bonapartes. The old
miser, who was said to keep a chest of gold coins under his bed which he
claimed was not his but the Church's, left a significant amount of money.
By the end of 1791 Napoleon and Joseph were co-owners of a house and a
vineyard in the environs of Ajaccio; in addition, Napoleon estimated he
spent 5,ooo francs getting himself elected as Lieutenant-Colonel and
second-in-command of a regiment of Corsican volunteers in 1792 - in an
episode which merits further examination for the light it throws on
Napoleon the Machiavellian.
Napoleon's release from abject poverty in late 1791 launched him into
the final phase of his abortive career as a Corsican politician. What kind
of political views did the ambitious first lieutenant hold at this juncture,
itself a turning point in the wider French Revolution? To establish this
we must examine the copious writings he churned out in the period
marcin
(Marcin)
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