levolent intriguers; but all his
efforts to obtain redress were in vain. Lacking money and patronage,
known only as an able officer and facile intriguer of the bankrupt
Jacobinical party, he might well have despaired. He was now almost
alone. Marmont had gone off to the Army of the Rhine; but Junot was
still with him, allured perhaps by Madame Permon's daughter, whom he
subsequently married. At the house of this amiable hostess, an old
friend of his family, Buonaparte found occasional relief from the
gloom of his existence. The future Madame Junot has described him as
at this time untidy, unkempt, sickly, remarkable for his extreme
thinness and the almost yellow tint of his visage, which was, however,
lit up by "two eyes sparkling with keenness and will-power"--evidently
a Corsican falcon, pining for action, and fretting its soaring spirit
in that vapid town life. Action Buonaparte might have had, but only of
a kind that he loathed. He might have commanded the troops destined to
crush the brave royalist peasants of La Vendee. But, whether from
scorn of such vulture-work, or from an instinct that a nobler quarry
might be started at Paris, he refused to proceed to the Army of the
West, and on the plea of ill-health remained in the capital. There he
spent his time deeply pondering on politics and strategy. He designed
a history of the last two years, and drafted a plan of campaign for
the Army of Italy, which, later on, was to bear him to fortune.
Probably the geographical insight which it displayed may have led to
his appointment (August 20th, 1795) to the topographical bureau of the
Committee of Public Safety. His first thought on hearing of this
important advancement was that it opened up an opportunity for
proceeding to Turkey to organize the artillery of the Sultan; and in a
few days he sent in a formal request to that effect--the first
tangible proof of that yearning after the Orient which haunted him all
through life. But, while straining his gaze eastwards, he experienced
a sharp rebuff. The Committee was on the point of granting his
request, when an examination of his recent conduct proved him guilty
of a breach of discipline in not proceeding to his Vendean command. On
the very day when one department of the Committee empowered him to
proceed to Constantinople, the Central Committee erased his name from
the list of general officers (September 15th).

This time the blow seemed fatal. But Fortune appeared to compas