nd tried to get
possession of Ajaccio at the Easter Festival.

This second attempt to raise an insurrection ended in the entire
Buonaparte family being driven by the wrathful Corsicans to France,
which henceforth was their adopted country. The Revolution blazed
forth and King and Queen went to the scaffold, while treason that
might, in time of peace, have served to send an {172} officer to death,
proved a stepping-stone to high rank and promotion. It was a civil
war, and in it Napoleon was first to show his extraordinary skill in
military tactics. He had command of the artillery besieging Toulon in
1793 and was marked as a man of merit, receiving the command of a
brigade and passing as a general of artillery into the foreign war
which Republican France waged against all Europe.

The command of the army of Italy was offered Napoleon by Barras, who
was one of the new Directory formed to rule the Republic. A rich wife
seemed essential for a poor young man with boundless ambitions just
unfolding. Barras had taken up the Corsican, and arranged an
introduction for him to Josephine Beauharnais, the beautiful widow of a
noble who had been a victim of the Reign of Terror. He had previously
made the acquaintance of Josephine's young son Eugene, when the boy
came to ask that his father's sword might be restored to him.

Josephine pleased the suitor by her amiability, and was attracted in
turn by his ardent nature. She was in a position to advance his
interests through her intimacy with Barras, who promised that Napoleon
should hold a great position in the army if she became his wife. She
married Napoleon in March 1796, undaunted by the prediction: "You will
be a queen and yet you will not sit on a throne." Napoleon's career
may then be said to have begun in earnest. It was the dawn of a new
age in Europe, where France stood forth as a predominant power.
Austria was against her as the avenger of Marie Antoinette, France's
ill-fated Queen, who had been Maria Theresa's daughter. England and
Russia were in alliance, though Russia was an uncertain and disloyal
ally.

{173}

Want of money might have daunted one less eager for success than the
young Napoleon. He was, however, planning a campaign in Italy as an
indirect means of attacking Austria. He addressed his soldiers boldly,
promising to lead them into the most fruitful plains in the world.
"Rich provinces, great cities will be in your power," he assured them.
"T