First Italian Campaign: Clisson Et Eugénie

Some contemporaries alleged that Bonaparte was put under
house arrest at Nice for his

association with the Robespierres following their fall in the Thermidorian Reaction in July 1794,
but Napoleon's secretary Bourrienne disputed the allegation in his memoirs. According to
Bourrienne, jealousy was responsible, between the Army of the Alps and the Army of Italy (with
whom Napoleon was seconded at the time).[47] Bonaparte dispatched an impassioned defence in
a letter to the commissar Saliceti, and he was subsequently acquitted of any wrongdoing. [48] He
was released within two weeks (on 20 August) and, due to his technical skills, was asked to draw
up plans to attack Italian positions in the context of France's war with Austria. He also took part in
an expedition to take back Corsica from the British, but the French were repulsed by the British
Royal Navy.[49]
By 1795, Bonaparte had become engaged to Désirée Clary, daughter of François Clary.
Désirée's sister Julie Clary had married Bonaparte's elder brother Joseph.[50] In April 1795, he was
assigned to the Army of the West, which was engaged in the War in the Vendée—a civil war and
royalist counter-revolution in Vendée, a region in west-central France on the Atlantic Ocean. As
an infantry command, it was a demotion from artillery general—for which the army already had a
full quota—and he pleaded poor health to avoid the posting. [51]
Journée du 13 Vendémiaire, artillery fire in front of the Church of Saint-Roch, Paris, Rue Saint-Honoré
He was moved to the Bureau of Topography of the Committee of Public Safety and sought
unsuccessfully to be transferred to Constantinople in order to offer his services to the Sultan.
[52]
During this period, he wrote the romantic novella Clisson et Eugénie, about a soldier and his
lover, in a clear parallel to Bonaparte's own relationship with Désirée. [53] On 15 September,
Bonaparte was removed from the list of generals in regular service for his refusal to serve in the
Vendée campaign. He faced a difficult financial situation and reduced career prospects. [54]
On 3 October, royalists in Paris declared a rebellion against the National Convention.[55] Paul
Barras, a leader of the Thermidorian Reaction, knew of Bonaparte's military exploits at Toulon
and gave him command of the improvised forces in defence of the convention in the Tuileries
Palace. Napoleon had seen the massacre of the King's Swiss Guard there three years earlier and
realized that artillery would be the key to its defence. [25]
He ordered a young cavalry officer named Joachim Murat to seize large cannons and used them
to repel the attackers on 5 October 1795—13 Vendémiaire An IV in the French Republican
Calendar; 1,400 royalists died and the rest fled.[55] He had cleared the streets with "a whiff
of grapeshot", according to 19th-century historian Thomas Carlyle in The French Revolution: A
History.[56][57]
The defeat of the royalist insurrection extinguished the threat to the Convention and earned
Bonaparte sudden fame, wealth, and the patronage of the new government, the Directory. Murat
married one of Napoleon's sisters, becoming his brother-in-law; he also served under Napoleon
as one of his generals. Bonaparte was promoted to Commander of the Interior and given
command of the Army of Italy.[40]
Within weeks, he was romantically involved with Joséphine de Beauharnais, the former mistress
of Barras. The couple married on 9 March 1796 in a civil ceremony. [58]
First Italian campaign

Main article: Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars
Bonaparte at the Pont d'Arcole, by Baron Antoine-Jean Gros, (c. 1801), Musée du Louvre, Paris

Two days after the marriage, Bonaparte left Paris to take command of the Army of Italy. He
immediately went on the offensive, hoping to defeat the forces of Piedmont before their Austrian
allies could intervene. In a series of rapid victories during the Montenotte Campaign, he knocked
Piedmont out of the war in two weeks. The French then focused on the Austrians for the
remainder of the war, the highlight of which became the protracted struggle for Mantua.
The Austrians launched a series of offensives against the French to break the siege, but
Napoleon defeated every relief effort, scoring victories at the battles
of Castiglione, Bassano, Arcole, and Rivoli. The decisive French triumph at Rivoli in January
1797 led to the collapse of the Austrian position in Italy. At Rivoli, the Austrians lost up to 14,000
men while the French lost about 5,000. [59]
The next phase of the campaign featured the French invasion of the Habsburg heartlands.
French forces in Southern Germany had been defeated by the Archduke Charles in 1796, but the
Archduke withdrew his forces to protect Vienna after learning about Napoleon's assault. In the
first encounter between the two commanders, Napoleon pushed back his opponent and
advanced deep into Austrian territory after winning at the Battle of Tarvis in March 1797. The
Austrians were alarmed by the French thrust that reached all the way to Leoben, about 100 km
from Vienna, and finally decided to sue for peace. [60] The Treaty of Leoben, followed by the more
comprehensive Treaty of Campo Formio, gave France control of most of northern Italy and
the Low Countries, and a secret clause promised the Republic of Venice to Austria. Bonaparte
marched on Venice and forced its surrender, ending 1,100 years of Venetian independence. He
also authorized the French to loot treasures such as the Horses of Saint Mark.[61] On the journey,
Bonaparte conversed much about the warriors of antiquity especially Alexander, Caesar, Scipio
and Hannibal. He studied their strategy and combined it with his own. In a question from
Bourrienne, asking whether he gave his preference to Alexander or Caesar, Napoleon said that
he places Alexander The Great in the first rank, the main reason being his campaign on Asia. [62]
Bonaparte during the Italian campaign in 1797
His application of conventional military ideas to real-world situations enabled his military triumphs,
such as creative use of artillery as a mobile force to support his infantry. He stated later in life:
[when?]
"I have fought sixty battles and I have learned nothing which I did not know at the beginning.
Look at Caesar; he fought the first like the last".[63]
Bonaparte could win battles by concealment of troop deployments and concentration of his forces
on the "hinge" of an enemy's weakened front. If he could not use his favourite envelopment
strategy, he would take up the central position and attack two co-operating forces at their hinge,
swing round to fight one until it fled, then turn to face the other. [64] In this Italian campaign,
Bonaparte's army captured 150,000 prisoners, 540 cannons, and 170 standards.[65] The French
army fought 67 actions and won 18 pitched battles through superior artillery technology and
Bonaparte's tactics.[66]
During the campaign, Bonaparte became increasingly influential in French politics. He founded
two newspapers: one for the troops in his army and another for circulation in France. [67] The
royalists attacked Bonaparte for looting Italy and warned that he might become a dictator.
[68]
Napoleon's forces extracted an estimated $45 million in funds from Italy during their campaign
there, another $12 million in precious metals and jewels. His forces also confiscated more than
three-hundred priceless paintings and sculptures. [69]
Bonaparte sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris to lead a coup d'état and purge the royalists on
4 September—Coup of 18 Fructidor. This left Barras and his Republican allies in control again
but dependent on Bonaparte, who proceeded to peace negotiations with Austria. These
negotiations resulted in the Treaty of Campo Formio, and Bonaparte returned to Paris in
December as a hero.[70] He met Talleyrand, France's new Foreign Minister—who served in the
same capacity for Emperor Napoleon—and they began to prepare for an invasion of Britain. [40]

First Italian Campaign: Clisson Et Eugénie

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Some contemporaries alleged that Bonaparte was put under

house arrest at Nice for his

First Italian campaign

Bonaparte at the Pont d'Arcole, by Baron Antoine-Jean Gros, (c. 1801), Musée du Louvre, Paris

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