-four he was known only as the
unlucky leader of forlorn hopes and an outcast from the island around
which his fondest longings had been entwined. His land-fall on the
French coast seemed no more promising; for at that time Provence was
on the verge of revolt against the revolutionary Government. Even
towns like Marseilles and Toulon, which a year earlier had been noted
for their republican fervour, were now disgusted with the course of
events at Paris. In the third climax of revolutionary fury, that of
June 2nd, 1793, the more enlightened of the two republican factions,
the Girondins, had been overthrown by their opponents, the men of the
Mountain, who, aided by the Parisian rabble, seized on power. Most of
the Departments of France resented this violence and took up arms. But
the men of the Mountain acted with extraordinary energy: they
proclaimed the Girondins to be in league with the invaders, and
blasted their opponents with the charge of conspiring to divide France
into federal republics. The Committee of Public Safety, now installed
in power at Paris, decreed a _levee en masse_ of able-bodied patriots
to defend the sacred soil of the Republic, and the "organizer of
victory," Carnot, soon drilled into a terrible efficiency the hosts
that sprang from the soil. On their side the Girondins had no
organization whatever, and were embarrassed by the adhesion of very
many royalists. Consequently their wavering groups speedily gave way
before the impact of the new, solid, central power.

A movement so wanting in definiteness as that of the Girondins was
destined to slide into absolute opposition to the men of the Mountain:
it was doomed to become royalist. Certainly it did not command the
adhesion of Napoleon. His inclinations are seen in his pamphlet, "Le
Souper de Beaucaire," which he published in August, 1793. He wrote it
in the intervals of some regimental work which had come to hand: and
his passage through the little town of Beaucaire seems to have
suggested the scenic setting of this little dialogue. It purports to
record a discussion between an officer--Buonaparte himself--two
merchants of Marseilles, and citizens of Nimes and Montpellier. It
urges the need of united action under the lead of the Jacobins. The
officer reminds the Marseillais of the great services which their city
has rendered to the cause of liberty. Let Marseilles never disgrace
herself by calling in the Spanish fleet as a protection against
Fren