aid to Bourienne, that, if he could afford to have a small house in the
street where his school-fellow lived, and to keep a cabriolet, he would
be contented. His elder brother had about this time married Mademoiselle
Clery, whose father, the merchant of Marseilles, gave her a handsome
dowry. "How fortunate," Napoleon would often exclaim, "is that fool
Joseph!"[6]

Talma, the celebrated tragedian, was one of his chief associates at this
time, and even then talked with confidence of the future fortunes of
"little Buonaparte." This player's kindness and Aubry's opposition were
both remembered. The Emperor always patronised Talma; and Aubry died in
exile.

Napoleon, despairing of employment at home, now drew up a memorial to
the government, requesting to be sent with a few other officers of
artillery into Turkey, for the purpose of placing that branch of the
Grand Seignior's service in a condition more suitable to the
circumstances of the times--in which it seemed highly probable that the
Porte might find itself in alliance with France, and assaulted by the
combined armies of Russia and Austria. No answer was returned to this
memorial, over which he dreamt for some weeks in great enthusiasm. "How
strange," he said to his friends, "would it be if a little Corsican
soldier should become King of Jerusalem!" Go where he might, he already
contemplated greatness.

At length Napoleon was nominated to the command of a brigade of
artillery in Holland. The long-deferred appointment was, no doubt, very
welcome; but in the meantime his services were called for on a nearer
and a more important field.

The French nation were now heartily tired of the National Convention: it
had lost most of its distinguished members in the tumults and
persecutions of the times; and above all it had lost respect by
remaining for two years the slave and the tool of the Terrorists. The
downfall of Robespierre, when it did take place, showed how easily the
same blessed deliverance might have been effected long before, had this
body possessed any sense of firmness or of dignity. Even the restoration
of the members banished by the tyrant did not serve to replace the
Convention in the confidence of the public. They themselves saw clearly
that a new remodelling of the government was called for and must be; and
their anxiety was to devise the means of securing for themselves as
large a share as possible of substantial power, under some arrangement
sufficient