SIEGE OF TOULON. 23 very worst Government that France or any other country in modern Europe had been acquainted with). The spirit of the composition is sternly republican, but its logic and style are superior to those of his former declamatory pamphlet. If not aided by others, he had much improved as a writer within the last two years. Still, those have not consulted the author's reputation who have copiously quoted from, or reproduced in toto, this pièce de circonstance. When Montholon praised it, he was simply mad. The pamphlet was distributed among the Jacobins, who then monopolized political power and all official stations; and it no doubt produced to Bonaparte some of the benefits which he desired, and for which alone he had written it. When he arrived before Toulon, the French besieging army had made little or no progress in its operations against the place, and had been repeatedly worsted and thrown into confusion, by sorties made by the English troops. It was commanded by one Cartaux, a rough illiterate fellow, who had been a private of dragoons before the Revolution. The man was extremely ignorant of military matters, but, like so many others, he had made his way by affecting republican fanaticism, and by using the coarse revolutionary jargon then in fashion. Bonaparte has given an amusing account of his reception at Cartaux's head-quarters, and of the gross ignorance and absurd vanity of this sans-culotte general. He had great difficulty in making him understand the simplest notion concerning a battery. On a trial of one of his guns, the shot was found to reach not one-third of the distance; yet Cartaux had been blazing away the ball and powder of the Republic! To conciliate his good-will, Bonaparte adopted his shibboleth and jargon. Cartaux was taken in. Not so Madame his wife, who was accustomed to say, "Cartaux, you are a fool to take the gentleman for a Jacobin! That young man has too much good sense to be a Jacobin! No, no! That young officer's manners are too good for him to be a real Jacobin." Fortunately Gasparin, a commissioner of the Convention, arrived at the camp. He was a man of education and of some military experience, and was thus able to understand Bonaparte, and to make some new friends for him. Cartaux was recalled, but his immediate successor was not worth more than he.* This was Doppet, a Savoyard doctor, now transformed into a general, who understood making pills better than directing cannon-balls. In a few days, however, he was superseded by the veteran General Dugommier, who had served in both hemispheres, and who placed entire confidence in Bonaparte, forthwith giving him the command of the whole artillery for the siege. The French were now reinforced to more than 30,000 men, while the allies did not exceed 11,000, consisting of the soldiers of four or five different nations, some of whom, the Spaniards, proved very lukewarm in the cause, while others, the Neapolitans, were exceedingly deficient in organization and discipline. On the whole, our allies at Toulon were quite as bad as Bonaparte's two first generals. Nor can it be said that at this time there was much military science on the part of our commanding officers, to make up for the want of numbers and other deficiencies. Our generals had not even an état major, or the elements for forming one. Such elements did not exist in our army until nearly seven years later, when Sir Ralph Abercrombie landed in Egypt, to encounter the French there. The science we wanted, Napoleon possessed. A council of war was held in the camp of the besiegers. The executive at Paris had sent a plan of attack to General Dugommier—a plan probably drawn up by Carnot, who was one of the governing party. Dugommier thought, and they all thought, that the plan was a good one; but young Bonaparte suggested better. "All that you want," said he, "is to force the English to evacuate Toulon. Instead of attacking them in the town, which must involve a long series of operations, try and establish batteries, which shall sweep the harbour and the roadstead. If you can only drive away the ships, the troops will not remain.” He pointed out the rocky promontory of La Grasse, which stands nearly opposite to the town, and commands both the inner and the outer harbour, and said, "Take La Grasse, and in two days Toulon will be yours!" If Cartaux had made the attempt two months * Poor Cartaux went through many vicissitudes. At one time he was a lottery-office keeper in Paris; at another he was employed at a small Government office in Tuscany. He died about 1808, leaving his wife, who had shrewdly discovered the non-Jacobinism of Napoleon, in the lowest depths of poverty, 1794.] SIEGE OF TOULON. 25 earlier nothing could have been so easy of execution; but in that interval the English had thrown up three redoubts on that promontory, and had strengthened Fort l'Aiguillette and Fort Balaguier, which stood on the two seaward points of the promontory of La Grasse; and since the arrival of the troops from Gibraltar, these works, though with little to justify the comparison, had gone by the name of "Little Gibraltar." These two forts, which had been originally constructed, like all the important works at Toulon, merely as sea defences, were weak on the land side, and, however much they had been improved, they were still commanded by the higher ground at the back of them, so that their security depended entirely upon the three redoubts, and the abattis which the English had erected across the promontory. Fort l'Aiguillette was the better one of the two; but both were absolutely under the guns of whatever party should secure the higher ground of the little promontory, which presented no precipices or obstructions to the French on the land side, being joined on to the continent by an easy slope. Under the direction of Bonaparte, batteries were erected opposite the English redoubts, and other batteries were thrown up near Fort Malbousquet, on the opposite side of the inner harbour. None of these advances had been allowed without a sharp contest, and in many instances the Republicans had been obliged to relinquish, with great loss, the ground they had gained. On the 15th of November they had lost in one affair some six hundred men. On the 30th, General O'Hara, perceiving that their works near Malbousquet might annoy the town and the arsenal, and Fort l'Aiguillette, made a sally in great force, drove them from the hill and from their redoubt, and was in the act of spiking their guns, when Bonaparte in person, observing that the greater part of the English troops were descending the opposite side of the hill and pursuing the French impetuously and without order, threw himself with an entire battalion into a hollow which was screened by willow-trees and bushes, and which led round to the gorge of the redoubt. O'Hara, who did not discover this force until it was close upon him, and who then mistook it for a detachment of his allies, advanced to the hedge to give orders. He was saluted with a vol |