CHAPTER FIVEThe refugee Bonaparte family reached Toulon to find the Terror at its
height. As 'aristocrats' the Bonapartes might have been at risk, but
Lucien was already a prominent member of the Toulon Jacobin club, and
the family was penniless. Just to be on the safe side, however, Letizia and
her three daughters were described on their passports as 'dressmakers'.
But Toulon was not secure even for the Jacobins: in July the townspeople
rose against the Terror and let in the British under Admiral Hood,
forcing Lucien and his fellow politicos to flee.
Toulon's action was not an isolated case. In the summer of 1793 the
spark of civil war lit up two-thirds of the Departments of France. The
Girondin faction, expelled from the Convention by the Jacobins and
'Men of the Mountain', raised the provinces in revolt against Paris.
There was a serious uprising in Lyons, and the defection of Toulon and
Marseilles conjured visions of a counter-revolutionary link-up with the
rebels at Lyons, taking Provence out of the Jacobin orbit.
Letizia initially took lodgings in the small town of La Vallette, near
Toulon, but when the rising took place Joseph moved her to Marseilles
and installed her in two rooms there: desperately hard up, she was forced
to queue for soup at the municipal soup kitchen. She eked out an
existence on money supplied by Napoleon who continued to evince a
talent for manipulation by rejoining his regiment in Nice and getting
3,ooo francs in back pay. He also received additional funds as unofficial
secretary to Saliceti, who now stood forth as the Bonapartes' doughty
champion. Saliceti wrote to the Convention in Paris, backing the
Bonapartes' claim for compensation for their expropriated property in
Corsica, alleging that Napoleon had sacrificed all for the Revolution. The
Convention voted a grant of 6oo,ooo francs compensation and notified
Joseph, who had gone to Paris to lobby for recompense, but not a penny
of the money was ever paid.
Napoleon was in favour when rejoining his regiment partly because the
brother of his old friend General du Teil was in charge. After being
employed on the supervision of artillery batteries on the coast, Napoleon