Various - Harper's New Monthly Magazine. No. XVI.—September, 1851—Vol. III

Napoleon's younger brother, Louis, visited him during the siege. They walked out one morning to a place where an unavailing assault had been made by a portion of the army, and two hundred mangled bodies of Frenchmen were strewn over the ground. On beholding the slaughter which had taken place, Napoleon exclaimed, "All those men have been needlessly sacrificed. Had intelligence commanded here none of these lives need have been lost. Learn from this, my brother, how indispensable and imperatively necessary it is, that those should possess knowledge who aspire to assume the command over others."

Napoleon, with an energy which seemed utterly exhaustless, devoted himself to the enterprise he had undertaken. He shared all the toils and all the perils of his men. He allowed himself but a few hours' sleep at night, and then wrapped in his cloak, threw himself under the guns. By the utmost exertions he soon obtained, from all quarters, a train of two hundred heavy battering cannon. In the midst of a storm of shot and shells incessantly falling around him, he erected five or six powerful batteries, within point-blank range of the works he would assail. One battery in particular which was masked by a plantation of olives, he constructed very near the entrenchments of the enemy. He seemed utterly regardless of his own safety, had several horses shot from under him, and received from an Englishman so serious a bayonet wound in his left thigh that for a time he was threatened with the necessity of amputation. All these operations were carried on in the midst of the storms of battle. There were daily and nightly skirmishes and sallies, and deadly assaults, and the dreadful tide of successful and unsuccessful war ever ebbed and flowed. One day an artillery man was shot down by his side, and the ramrod which he was using was drenched with blood. Napoleon immediately sprung into the dead man's place, seized the rod, and to the great encouragement of the soldiers, with his own hand, repeatedly charged the gun.

While the siege was in progress, one day, fifteen carriages, from Paris, suddenly made their appearance in the camp, and about sixty men alighting from them, dressed in gorgeous uniform, and with the pomp and important air of embassadors from the revolutionary government, demanded to be led into the presence of the commander-in-chief.

"Citizen general," said the orator of the party. "We come from Paris. The patriots are indignant at your inactivity and delay. The soil of the Republic has been violated. She trembles to think that the insult still remains unavenged. She asks, Why is Toulon not yet taken? why is the English fleet not yet destroyed? In her indignation she has appealed to her brave sons. We have obeyed her summons and burn with impatience to fulfill her expectations. We are volunteer gunners from Paris. Furnish us with arms. To-morrow we will march against the enemy."

The general was not a little disconcerted by this pompous and authoritative address. But Napoleon whispered to him, "Turn those gentlemen over to me. I will take care of them." They were very hospitably entertained, and the next morning, at daybreak, Napoleon conducted them to the sea-shore, and gave them charge of several pieces of artillery, which he had placed there during the night, and with which he requested them to sink an English frigate whose black and threatening hull was seen, through the haze of the morning, at anchor some distance from the shore. The trembling volunteers looked around with most nervous uneasiness in view of their exposed situation, and anxiously inquired if there was no shelter behind which they could stand. Just then John Bull uttered one of his most terrific roars, and a whole broadside of cannon balls came whistling over their heads. This was not the amusement they had bargained for, and the whole body of braggadocios took to precipitate flight. Napoleon sat quietly upon his horse, without even a smile moving his pensive and marble features as he contemplated, with much satisfaction, the dispersion of such troublesome allies.

Upon another occasion, when the enemy were directing their fire upon the works which he was constructing, having occasion to send a dispatch from the trenches, he called for some one who could write, that he might dictate an order. A young private stepped out from the ranks and, resting the paper upon the breastwork, began to write, as he dictated. While thus employed, a cannon ball, from the enemy's battery, struck the ground but a few feet from them, covering their persons and the paper with the earth. "Thank you," said the soldier, gayly, "we shall need no more sand upon this page." The instinctive fearlessness and readiness thus displayed arrested the attention of Napoleon. He fixed his keen and piercing eye upon him for a moment, as if scrutinizing all his mental and physical qualities, and then said, "Young man! what can I do for you?" The soldier blushed deeply, but promptly replied, "Every thing," and then touching his left shoulder with his hand, he added, "you can change this worsted into an epaulet." A few days after, Napoleon sent for the same soldier, to reconnoitre the trenches of the enemy, and suggested that he should disguise his dress, as his exposure would be very great. "Never," replied the soldier; "do you take me for a spy? I will go in my uniform, though I should never return." He set out immediately, and fortunately escaped unharmed. These two incidents revealed character, and Napoleon immediately recommended him for promotion. This was Junot, afterward Duke of Abrantes, and one of the most efficient friends of Napoleon. "I love Napoleon," said Junot afterward, most wickedly, "as my God. To him I am indebted for all that I am." 1 1 It is pleasant to witness manifestations of gratitude. God frowns upon impiety. The wealthy, illustrious, and miserable Junot, in a paroxysm of insanity, precipitated himself from his chamber window, and died in agony upon the pavement.

At last the hour arrived when all things were ready for the grand attempt. It was in the middle watches of the night of the 17th of December, 1793, when the signal was given for the assault. A cold storm of wind and rain was wailing its midnight dirges in harmony with the awful scene of carnage, destruction, and woe, about to ensue. The genius of Napoleon had arranged every thing and inspired the desperate enterprise. No pen can describe the horrors of the conflict. All the energies of both armies were exerted to the utmost in the fierce encounter. To distract the attention of the enemy, the fortifications were every where attacked, while an incessant shower of bomb-shells were rained down upon the devoted city, scattering dismay and death in all directions. In the course of a few hours eight thousand shells from the effective batteries of Napoleon were thrown into Little Gibraltar, until the massive works were almost one pile of ruins. In the midst of the darkness, the storm, the drenching rain, the thunder of artillery, and the gleaming light of bomb-shells, the French marched up to the very muzzles of the English guns, and were mown down like grass before the scythe by the tremendous discharges of grape-shot and musketry. The ditches were filled with the dead and the dying. Again and again the French were repulsed, only to return again and again to the assault. Napoleon was every where present, inspiring the onset, even more reckless of his own life than of the lives of his soldiers. For a long time the result seemed very doubtful. But the plans of Napoleon were too carefully laid for final discomfiture. His mangled, bleeding columns rushed in at the embrasures of the rampart, and the whole garrison were in a few moments silent and still in death. "General," said Bonaparte to Dugommier, broken down by fatigue and age, as he raised the tricolored flag over the crumbling walls of the rampart, "go and sleep. We have taken Toulon." "It was," says Scott, "upon this night of terror, conflagration, tears, and blood, that the star of Napoleon first ascended the horizon, and though it gleamed over many a scene of horror ere it set, it may be doubted whether its light was ever blended with that of one more dreadful."