Attend Now To Hear Something To Your Advantage
Whatever his virtues, which were minimal, or his qualities, which were great, Napoleon exemplified the unquenchable power of perfect self-love, undying and utterly satisfactory. From bitter denigration of all rivals or enemies, to inane self gratulation, his Memoirs and bulletins effortlessly avoided any pedestrian regard for truth, and made clear that honour to him was a small metal object to be awarded to a follower. From the Memoirs although clear that Waterloo, for instance, was a triumph of his genius and his opponents small-minded clods, whose defeat was unfairly not recognised by them or others, his over-swift abandonings of his troops from Egypt to Russia is scarcely fit to remember. “Bonaparte is not a gentlemen.” according to Wellington; which is true and not negated by the fact that Wellesley was not one either to my royalist standards.
Here he relates an incident after the siege of Toulon, and with all the alacrity and probable insincerity of certain Wehrmacht generals distancing themselves from the mass shootings of the Einsatzgruppen — spiritual descendants of the Marseillesian Contingents — makes it clear that he was guiltless, guiltless I tell you, of any complicity or impropriety himself. Certainly he was not there, but neither did he protest or consider not serving such masters. Although considering his proclaimed irreplacable and beloved status with the revolutionary goverment of the Convention, he had less excuse than those above, not being in any such danger as befell either French revolutionary generals who lost battles and so were rushed to execution or German generals over a century later who could be severely pressured by the nazi police-state. A lack of moral courage — one can define it as a willingness to do the correct thing despite undoubted bad consequences for so doing — is normal and largely necessary in military men; yet with all that said, that remains one of the major among the many reasons why military men should never hold political office or power. It would be idle and hypocritical of me to pretend that a massacre would put me off my dinner — these things happen not infrequently in history and each side proclaims right is on their side — as compared to one instance of suffering of one close to me; but it might be agreed they are inexpedient, usually pointless, and ugly happenings.
The representatives established a revolutionary tribunal, according to the laws of the time. In general, though, all the guilty had escaped and fled with the enemy and all those who had decided to stay were conscious of their innocence. Nevertheless, the tribunal had several people arrested who had been prevented by various accidents from following the enemy and caused them to be punished in expiation of their guilt. But eight or ten victims were too few and recourse was had to a dreadful measure, characteristic of the spirit of the time. It was proclaimed that everyone who had been employed in the arsenal while the English were in possession of the town must attend a roll call in the Champs de Mars. These people were led to believe that this was so that they might be re-employed and so, confidently, nearly two hundred head workmen, inferior clerks, and other junior employees attended and had their names registered. Thus it was proved by their own confession that they had retained their posts under the English government, and the revolutionary tribunal, in the open field, immediately sentenced them to death. A battalion of Sans-Culottes and Marseillese, brought expressly for the purpose, shot them. This deed requires no comment. It was though, the only execution that took place at Toulon.* That any persons whatever were killed by grapeshot is untrue** — neither I nor the regular cannoneers would have lent themselves to such an action.*** It was the cannoneers of the Revolutionary Army who committed atrocities at Lyons.****
* Another instance of the Ruling Passion: his compulsion to lie, even when it serves no purpose. It scarcely matters how many by now, as with all deaths of the past; but actually, most estimates indicate that up to 2000 people were murdered in this incident. What’s a Factor of Ten to a dictator, though… ?
** And he wasn’t there.
*** Ar, get away wid yez…
**** As opposed to the Revolutionary Army of the French Republic in which Napoleon was serving ? This makes no sense whatsoever; quite apart from the gratuitous reference to Lyons — Lyons, where crippled Couthon was carried about on a litter, striking any non-revolutionary house with his little silver hammer to indicate to the slack-jawed demolishers behind him that it should be punished by immediate hauling down… [ Hey, no-one ever said the brains of revolutionaries aren't mainly composed of sawdust. ]
: Napoleon
