Harper's New Monthly Magazine. No. XVI.—September, 1851—Vol. III
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Harper's New Monthly Magazine / No. XVI.—September, 1851—Vol. III
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
BY JOHN S.C. ABBOTT
II. DAWNING GREATNESS
While Napoleon was spending his few months of furlough in Corsica, he devoted many hours every day to the careful composition, after the manner of Plutarch, of the lives of illustrious Corsicans. Though he had made considerable progress in the work, it was lost in the subsequent disorders of those times. He also established a debating club, composed of the several officers in the army upon the island, to discuss the great political questions which were then agitating Europe. These subjects he studied with most intense application. In this club he was a frequent speaker, and obtained much distinction for his argumentative and oratorical powers. Napoleon, at this time, warmly espoused the cause of popular liberty, though most sternly hostile to lawless violence. As the reign of terror began to shed its gloom on Paris, and each day brought its tidings of Jacobin cruelty and carnage, Napoleon imbibed that intense hatred of anarchy which he ever after manifested, and which no temptation could induce him to disguise. One day he expressed himself in the club so vehemently, that an enemy, Salicetti, reported him to the government as a traitor. He was arrested, taken to Paris, and obtained a triumphant acquittal. Some years after he had an opportunity to revenge himself, most magnanimously, upon his enemy who had thus meanly sought his life, and whom he could not but despise. Salicetti, in his turn, became obnoxious to the Jacobins, and was denounced as an outlaw. The officers of police were in pursuit of him, and the guillotine was ravenous for his blood. He ungenerously sought concealment under the roof of Madame Permon, the mother of the young lady who had suggested to Napoleon the idea of "Puss in Boots." By this act he exposed to the most imminent peril the lives of Madame Permon and of all the members of her household. Napoleon was on terms of familiar intimacy with the family, and Salicetti was extremely apprehensive that he might discover his retreat, and report him to the police. Madame Permon also, knowing the hatred with which Salicetti had sought Napoleon's life, participated in these fears.
The very next morning Napoleon made his appearance in the saloon of Madame Permon.
"Well, Madame Permon," said he, "Salicetti will now in his turn be able to appreciate the bitter fruits of arrest. And to him they ought to be the more bitter, since he aided, with his own hand, to plant the trees which bear them."
"How!" exclaimed Madame Permon, with an air of affected astonishment, "is Salicetti arrested?"
"And is it possible," replied Napoleon, "that you do not know that he has been proscribed. I presumed that you were aware of the fact, since it is in your house that he is concealed."
"Concealed in my house!" she cried, "surely, my dear Napoleon, you are mad. I entreat you do not repeat such a joke in any other place. I assure you it would peril my life."
Napoleon rose from his seat, advanced slowly toward Madame Permon, folded his arms upon his breast, and fixing his eyes in a steadfast gaze upon her, remained for a moment in perfect silence.
"Madame Permon!" he then said, emphatically, "Salicetti is concealed in your house. Nay – do not interrupt me. I know that yesterday at five o'clock he was seen proceeding from the Boulevard in this direction. It is well known that he has not in this neighborhood any acquaintances, you excepted, who would risk their own safety, as well as that of their friends by secreting him."
"And by what right," Madame Permon replied, with continued duplicity, "should Salicetti seek an asylum here? He is well aware that our political sentiments are at variance, and he also knows that I am on the point of leaving Paris."
"You may well ask," Napoleon rejoined, "by what right he should apply to you for concealment. To come to an unprotected woman, who might be compromised by