The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Vol. 1 (of 4) — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Vol. 1 (of 4)
John Stuart Mill · en
[Footnote 46: Inspection report in Jung, II, 477. "Too
much ambition and intrigue for his advancement."]
[Footnote 47: He was far down the list, one hundred and
thirty-ninth in the line of promotion.]
The Corsican administration had always had in it at least one French
representative. Between the latest of these, Lacombe Saint-Michel, now
a member of the Committee of Safety, and the Salicetti party no love
was ever lost. It was a general feeling that the refugee Corsicans on
the Mediterranean shore were too near their home. They were always
charged with unscrupulous planning to fill their own pockets. Now,
somehow or other, inexplicably perhaps, but nevertheless certainly, a
costly expedition had been sent to Corsica under the impulse of these
very men, and it had failed. The unlucky adventurers had scarcely set
their feet on shore before Lacombe secured Buonaparte's appointment to
the Army of the West, where he would be far from old influences, with
orders to proceed immediately to his post. The papers reached
Marseilles, whither the Buonapartes had already betaken themselves,
during the month of April. On May second,[48] accompanied by Louis,
Junot, and Marmont, the broken general set out for Paris, where he
arrived with his companions eight days later, and rented shabby
lodgings in the Fossés-Montmartre, now Aboukir street. The style of
the house was Liberty Hotel.
[Footnote 48: Possibly the twelfth. See Jung, III, I.]