Patrols were sent thither, and several cannon-shots were fired during the night, in order to prevent them from throwing up defences, which object was effectually accomplished.
"At daybreak, the General having learned that some students from the St.
Genevieve side of the river were marching with two pieces of cannon to succour the rebels, sent a detachment of dragoons in pursuit of them, who seized the cannon and conducted them to the Tuileries. The enfeebled Sections, however, still showed a front. They had barricaded the Section of Grenelle, and placed their cannon in the principal streets. At nine o'clock General Beruyer hastened to form his division in battle array in the Place Vendome, marched with two eight-pounders to the Rue des Vieux-Augustins, and pointed them in the direction of the Section Le Pelletier.
General Vachet, with a corps of 'tirailleurs', marched on his right, ready to advance to the Place Victoire. General Brune marched to the Perron, and planted two howitzers at the upper end of the Rue Vivienne.
General Duvigier, with his column of six hundred men, and two twelve- pounders, advanced to the streets of St. Roch and Montmartre. The Sections lost courage with the apprehension of seeing their retreat cut off, and evacuated the post at the sight of our soldiers, forgetting the honour of the French name which they had to support. The Section of Brutus still caused some uneasiness. The wife of a representative had been arrested there. General Duvigier was ordered to proceed along the Boulevard as far as the Rue Poissonniere. General Beruyer took up a position at the Place Victoire, and General Bonaparte occupied the Pont- au-Change.
"The Section of Brutus was surrounded, and the troops advanced upon the Place de Greve, where the crowd poured in from the Isle St. Louis, from the Theatre Francais, and from the Palace. Everywhere the patriots had regained their courage, while the poniards of the emigrants, armed against us, had disappeared. The people universally admitted their error.
"The next day the two Sections of Ls Pelletier and the Theatre Francais were disarmed."
The result of this petty civil war brought Bonaparte forward; but the party he defeated at that period never pardoned him for the past, and that which he supported dreaded him in the future. Five years after he will be found reviving the principles which he combated on the 5th of October 1795. On being appointed, on the motion of Barras, Lieutenant-General of the Army of the Interior, he established his headquarters in the Rue Neuve des Capucines. The statement in the 'Manuscrit de Sainte Helene, that after the 13th Brumaire he remained unemployed at Paris, is therefore obviously erroneous. So far from this, he was incessantly occupied with the policy of the nation, and with his own fortunes.
Bonaparte was in constant, almost daily, communication with every one then in power, and knew how to profit by all he saw or heard.
To avoid returning to this 'Manuscrit de Sainte Helene', which at the period of its appearance attracted more attention than it deserved, and which was very generally attributed to Bonaparte, I shall here say a few words respecting it. I shall briefly repeat what I said in a note when my opinion was asked, under high authority, by a minister of Louis XVIII.
No reader intimately acquainted with public affairs can be deceived by the pretended authenticity of this pamphlet. What does it contain?
Facts perverted and heaped together without method, and related in an obscure, affected, and ridiculously sententious style. Besides what appears in it, but which is badly placed there, it is impossible not to remark the omission of what should necessarily be there, were Napoleon the author. It is full of absurd and of insignificant gossip, of thoughts Napoleon never had, expressions unknown to him, and affectations far removed from his character. With some elevated ideas, more than one style and an equivocal spirit can be seen in it. Professed coincidences are put close to unpardonable anachronisms, and to the most absurd revelations. It contains neither his thoughts, his style, his actions, nor his life. Some truths are mimed up with an inconceivable mass of falsehoods. Some forms of expression used by Bonaparte are occasionally met with, but they are awkwardly introduced, and often with bad taste.
It has been reported that the pamphlet was written by M. Bertrand, formerly an officer of the army of the Vistula, and a relation of the Comte de Simeon, peer of France.
--['Manuscrit de Sainte Helene d'une maniere inconnue', London.
Murray; Bruxelles, De Mat, 20 Avril 1817. This work merits a note.
Metternich (vol, i. pp. 312-13) says, "At the time when it appeared the manuscript of St. Helena made a great impression upon Europe.
