t us spare the unfortunate!' 'Art thou from the
South?' 'Yes.' 'Well, then, we will spare him.'" Moreover, it is a
fact that Santerre, the notorious leader of the mob on that day, was
three years later, on the thirteenth of Vendemiaire, most useful to
Buonaparte; that though degraded from the office of general to which
he was appointed in the revolutionary army, he was in 1800 restored to
his rank by the First Consul. All this is consistent with Napoleon's
assertion, but it proves nothing conclusively; and there is certainly
ground for suspicion when we reflect that these events were ultimately
decisive of Buonaparte's fortunes.

[Footnote 29: Memoires du roi Joseph, I, 47.]

The Feuillant ministry fell with the King, and an executive council
composed of radicals took its place. For one single day Paris reeled
like a drunkard, but on the next the shops were open again. On the
following Sunday the opera was packed at a benefit performance for the
widows and orphans of those who had fallen in victory. A few days
later Lafayette, as commander of the armies in the North, issued a
pronunciamento against the popular excesses. He even arrested the
commissioners of the Assembly who were sent to supplant him and take
the ultimate direction of the campaign. But he quickly found that his
old prestige was gone; he had not kept pace with the mad rush of
popular opinion; neither in person nor as the sometime commander of
the National Guard had he any longer the slightest influence.
Impeached and declared an outlaw, he, like the King, lost his balance,
and fled for refuge into the possessions of Liege. The Austrians
violated the sanctuary of neutral territory, and captured him, exactly
as Napoleon at a later day violated the neutrality of Baden in the
case of the Duc d'Enghien. On August twenty-third the strong place of
Longwy was delivered into the hands of the Prussians, the capitulation
being due, as was claimed, to treachery among the French officers.

CHAPTER XIV.

Buonaparte the French Jacobin.

Reinstatement -- Further Solicitation -- Promotion --
Napoleon and Elisa -- Occupations in Paris -- Return to
Ajaccio -- Disorders in Corsica -- Buonaparte a French
Jacobin -- Expedition against Sardinia -- Course of French
Affairs -- Paoli's Changed Attitude -- Estrangement of
Buonaparte and Paoli -- Mischances in the Preparations
against Sardinia -- Failure of the French Deta