The French Revolution and Napoleon by Hazen Charles

Author:Hazen, Charles [Hazen, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: HISTORY/Europe/France
Publisher: Waxkeep Publishing
Published: 2013-07-12T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VI THE DIRECTORY

THE Directory lasted from October 27, 1795, to November 19, 1799. It took its name from the form of the executive branch of the Republic, as determined by the Constitution of 1795. Its history of four years was troubled, uncertain, and ended in its violent overthrow.

Its first and most pressing problem was the continued prosecution of the war. As already stated, Prussia, Spain, and Holland had withdrawn from the coalition and made peace with the Convention. But England, Austria, Piedmont, and the lesser German states were still in arms against the Republic. The first duty of the Directory was, therefore, to continue the war with them and to defeat them. France had already overrun the Austrian Netherlands, that is, modern Belgium, and had declared them annexed to France. But to compel Austria, the owner, to recognize this annexation she must be beaten. The Directory therefore proceeded with vigor to concentrate its attention upon this object. As France had thrown back her invaders, the fighting was no longer on French soil. She now became the invader, and that long series of conquests of various European countries by aggressive French armies began, which was to end only twenty years later with the fall of the greatest commander of modern times, if not of all history. The campaign against Austria, planned by the Directory, included two parallel and aggressive movements against that country — an attack through southern Germany, down the valley of the Danube, ending, it was hoped, at Vienna. This was the campaign north of the Alps. South of the Alps, in northern Italy, France had enemies in Piedmont and again in Austria, which had possession of the central and rich part of the Po valley, namely, Lombardy, with Milan as the capital.

The campaign in Germany was confided to Jourdan and Moreau; that in Italy to General Bonaparte, who made of it a stepping-stone to fame and power incomparable.

Napoleon Bonaparte was born at Ajaccio in Corsica in 1769, a short time after the island had been sold by Genoa to France. The family was of Italian origin but had been for two centuries and a half resident in the island. His father, Charles Bonaparte, was of the nobility but was poor, indolent, pleasure-loving, a lawyer by profession. His mother, Laetitia Ramolino, was a woman of great beauty, of remarkable will, of extraordinary energy. Poorly educated, this “mother of kings” was never able to speak the French language without ridiculous mistakes. She had thirteen children, eight of whom lived to grow up, five boys and three girls. The father died when the youngest, Jerome, was only three months old. Napoleon, the second son, was educated in French military schools at Brienne and Paris, as a sort of charity scholar. He was very unhappy, surrounded as he was by boys who looked down upon him because he was poor while they were rich, because his father was unimportant while theirs belonged to the noblest families in France, because he spoke French like the foreigner he was, Italian being his native tongue.

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