without a moment's delay to the
Convention. The names of Salicetti, Robespierre, Ricord, Freron, and
Barras are mentioned in Dugommier's letters as those of men who had
won distinction in various posts; that of Buonaparte does not occur.

There was either jealousy of his merits, which are declared by his
enemies to have been unduly vaunted, or else his share had been more
insignificant than is generally supposed. He related at St. Helena
that during the operations before Toulon he had had three horses
killed under him, and showed Las Cases a great scar on his thigh which
he said had been received in a bayonet charge at Toulon. "Men wondered
at the fortune which kept me invulnerable; I always concealed my
dangers in mystery." The hypothesis of his insignificance appears
unlikely when we examine the memoirs written by his contemporaries,
and consider the precise traditions of a later generation; it becomes
untenable in view of what happened on the next day, when the
commissioners nominated him for the office of general of brigade, a
rank which in the exchange of prisoners with the English was reckoned
as equal to that of lieutenant-general. In a report written on the
nineteenth to the minister of war, Duteil speaks in the highest terms
of Buonaparte. "A great deal of science, as much intelligence, and too
much bravery; such is a faint sketch of the virtues of this rare
officer. It rests with you, minister, to retain them for the glory of
the republic."

On December twenty-fourth the Convention received the news of victory.
It was really their reprieve, for news of disaster would have cut
short their career. Jubilant over a prompt success, their joy was
savage and infernal. With the eagerness of vampires they at once sent
two commissioners to wipe the name of Toulon from the map, and its
inhabitants from the earth. Fouche, later chief of police and Duke of
Otranto under Napoleon, went down from Lyons to see the sport, and
wrote to his friend the arch-murderer Collot d'Herbois that they were
celebrating the victory in but one way. "This night we send two
hundred and thirteen rebels into hell-fire." The fact is, no one ever
knew how many hundreds or thousands of the Toulon Girondists were
swept together and destroyed by the fire of cannon and musketry.
Freron, one of the commissioners, desired to leave not a single rebel
alive. Dugommier would listen to no such proposition for a holocaust.
Marmont declares that Buonaparte