The Washington herald., 1913-12-28
The MAN ON HORSEBACK

Aug. u. I7s5 Is With Typographical Bureau.
SEPT 8. Es5 His Italian plan adopted.
Sept. Is I79 Ordered to Turkey.
Sept. Is ITs5 Name erased from list Of generals.
Oct. S. ITs5 The fight in the streets Of PHrisL
Paris.
T STOOD by the inner harbor of Toulon,
where the Bonapartes, banished from
= Corsica, landed on the shore Of
France in the month of June, 17sS, with
hardly more than the poor clothes they
wore and without a door opening to well
come them Looking forward along The
Path of Napoleon" not far, but only
across a mile or so of water. I saw the
grassy ramparts of La Seyne, where un-
seen by the penniless fugitive Opportun-
ity waited for him.
If The Bath Of Napoleon had ended
beneath theEaves of the Mediterranean
in his flight from Calvi to Toulon, the
Corsican historians could have dismissed
him in a line as a rashly importunate
Young man who died at four and twenty
after having failed in every undertaking
whether with the pen or the sword. A
prolific author without a publisher, a
soldier for nearly eight years who in the
midst of great wars never had been in
battle Failure was writ large on his
gloomy brow as he stepped ashore at
Toulon and led his mother and brothers
and sisters to official headquarters where
they threw themselves on the charity OF
the government
As refugees from the enemies of France
the family received rude shelter in al
village on the side of Mount Faron,
which rises back of Toulon. The gos-
sips Of history say they slept at first on
straw piles and cooked in broken pot
the raw rations issued to them by the
commissary Afterward they were in
stalled in comparative comfort under a
peasants roof at village on the shore
Robespierre and Napoleon.
Robespierre was at the height of his
ruthless power that red summer, defying
the armies of Europe at the frontiers and
beating down the Girondtsts in civil
war at home. While Napoleon drifted
about, doing odd jobs for the army, he
wrote a clever dialogue on the critical
situation of the country, in which he ar
gued that all factions ought to forego
their uuarrels and stand together until
the republic was saved from destruction
at the hands of the Bourbons and the
alien monarchs who were banded against
il.
He had only finished this "Souper de
Beaucaire'' at Avignon, in the shadow
of the great rock on which the old Pal
ace of the Popes is perched, when the
commissioners of the national convention
visited the town, and one of them, Sali-
Cetti who was a Corsican, introduced
him to his colleagues, among whom was
the younger brother of Robespierre. The
author read his dialogue to the commits
sioners. who liked it so well they ordered
il published in the interest OF the gov
ernment and distributed by the armies
as they fought their way against the |
Girondists in Provence. The pen of Ma |
polean had won a chance for his sword |
and for the first time he was in touch |
with power.
Back at TOuIon.
After visiting mis- family at Marseilles, |
where they had been assigned by the !
government to living quarters on the |
fourth floor of the palace of nobleman !
who had been guillotined, he went to |
Toulcn and asked his fellow-Corsican, |
SaIlcetti, to let him take part in the !
siege there. Thus at the end of summer. |
he was back at his starting point but |
this time he was not in the bread line. |
He had come now to ilscribe the name |
of Toulon first on the list of his vic |
tories.
He found the army a scratch affair |
under the command of Gen. Carteaux, a |
painter who had lately exchanged the |
palette for the sword and who qualified |
for the soldiers profession by loading |
himself down with gold lace and grow
a
little artilleryman at once felt his supe-
riority to the amateur talent engaged in
the seige and he quickly saw that the
rebellfous town, floating the white BAN
ner of the Bourbons, was enabled to
maintain its resistance to the republic
only by the assistance OF the warships OF
England and other nations which lay in
its two harbors.
The strategic eye of Napoleon lighted
on this single fact and ignored all else.
The painter-generaI, in hurting his SOL
diers against the forts in the rear of
the town had only been pulling the coat
tails of Toulon. Napoleon. like a good
anatomist, saw that the one and only
thing to do was to take Toulon by its
harbor throat and choke 1t into sub
mission. While the ships remained it
was as absurd to capture the place as
il would be to capture a red-hot stove.
It could not be held; 1T would have to
be dropped.
Like the Siege of Boston.
When a council Of war was held to
listen to some lengthy instructions from
the parlor strategists of Paris, telling
just how Toulon should be taken, the
lean and sallow captain of artillery rose
to dissent Stepping to a military map,
he placed his finger on a point of land
at the mouth of the harbor, several
miles from the Notifications of the ;
town. and said in a truly Napoleonic
epigram, ''Toulon is there"' l.
This was only like selecting some
Doint down at the Narrows and saying