It was in keeping with Lucien's Republican principles to have married a barmaid; but the news drove his brother, then in Italy, into a frenzy of rage, for the young General-in-Chief was already visualizing himself as the head of a powerful family and planning for his relatives to marry far above their social status. Christine proved to be a good-looking, but undesigning, sweet-natured girl, and she soon won the love of all her husband's family, with the one exception of the General. She very soon adapted herself to her new circumstances and on coming to Paris was much admired for the elegance with which she displayed on her tall figure the latest creations of the fashionable dressmakers Leroi, Despaux and German. Even so, it was a long time before the disgruntled Napoleon would receive her, although, to enable the couple to support themselves, he procured for Lucien a post as one of the Commissioners with the Army in Germany. From this post they had just returned to Paris and Lucien was about to enter the Assembly as Deputy for Corsica.
£lise, the General's eldest sister, was just twenty-one. She was the least good-looking and least attractive of the sisters. Having been sent at an early age to Madame Campan's Academy for the Daughters of the Nobility as a charity pupil, supported by the late Queen, she always endeavoured to conceal the fact that she owed her excellent education to Marie Antoinette, and gave herself airs far above those to which a member of a poor Corsican family could pretend. Nevertheless, in the previous May she had married Felice Bacciochi, a Corsican landowner of little better birth than herself. This marriage, too, had infuriated her ambitious brother, as he had by then already established his Court at Montebello, and it had been contracted without his knowledge. However, Madame Letizia had been privy to the match and had sponsored it, from the belief that a solid Corsican with a little land would make £lise a better husband than some sprig of the Italian nobility selected for her by the General. Even so, he provided the Bacciochis with a house in the Grande Rue Verte and enabled them to entertain lavishly; but £lise showed him little gratitude and the ambitious intrigues that she conducted with considerable skill were often a cause of annoyance to him.
Louis, some eighteen months younger, came next. He was a mild, easy-going young man, lacking both the robust health and quick intelligence of his elder brothers. Yet he was the General's favourite, because he had been personally brought up by him. At the time when Napoleon was a near-penniless officer, studying at the Military College in Paris, he had sent for Louis, shared his attic with him, taught him at night by candlelight and made great sacrifices to clothe and feed him. At the age of seventeen Louis accompanied the General to Italy as one of his aides-de-camp and had acquitted himself creditably during the campaign. As he still held this appointment, Roger saw a lot of him.
Pauline was still only seventeen. She was the beauty of the family—gay, amusing and always surrounded by young men. She, too, had married in the previous summer, but a man of her brother's choice: the handsome young General Leclerc. She was Napoleon's favourite sister and, although like the others, ambitious and grasping, she showed him more affection and loyalty than they did. She and her husband were now installed in a house in the Rue de la Ville l'£veque.
Caroline, aged fifteen, and Jerome, aged thirteen, were still completing their education. These two were as yet too young to have joined in the family feud; but the rest, however much they might quarrel about other matters, were united in one thing—their hatred of Josephine. The puritanical Madame Letizia considered her daughter-in-law little better than a whore, while the others were riddled with jealousy and intensely resented Josephine's failure to reprove flatterers who insinuated that as she was better born than Napoleon she had done him a favour by marrying him.
Since Josephine, between her two marriages, had sunk to the status of a titled demi-mondaine, dependent for money on such presents as her men friends gave her, and had been no longer received by ladies of good reputation, Roger appreciated the point of view of the Bonaparte family. But Josephine had always shown him such unfailing kindness that, without going so far as to champion her against her detractors, he endeavoured, whenever the opportunity arose, to make them think better of her.
In all the salons Roger attended the talk, when not concerned with the latest scandals, was of events in Italy and Switzerland. In the latter country the declaration by the Directory at the end of December that France would give her protection to the Republicans of the Vaudois had led to a general war. The mobs in Zurich, Basle and Geneva had taken up the agitation for equality. General Schaumberg was ordered to march a Division of the French Army of the Rhine into Switzerland, and General Brune another Division from the Army of Italy. The Bernese aristocracy had, meanwhile, told their people in the cantons that the French were bandits and atheists who would rob them and deprive them of their religion, upon which twenty thousand stalwart mountaineers banded together in defence of their property and beliefs.
Numerous bloody engagements followed and, unfortunately, the Swiss, having on two occasions been compelled to retreat, believed that they had been betrayed by their officers. So they murdered many of the best among them, including the Bernese General, Erlach. Compelled to give way before the disciplined assaults of the French, the Swiss patriots had fallen back on Berne. Women, old men and young boys heroically threw themselves on the bayonets of the enemy in an endeavour to defend the city, but to no avail. On March 5th, after a most bloody massacre, General Brune entered it as a conqueror.
Soon afterwards, having arbitrarily annexed the city of Geneva, the French renamed the Swiss Confederation, calling it the Helvetic Republic, and installed a Government on similar lines to that in France. They then set about realizing the intention which had inspired their unscrupulous decision to bring murder, misery and ruin to this peaceful people—namely, the systematic looting of the country from end to end.
While hundreds of priests were being dragged from their hiding places and shot, and bands of Christians who still resisted were being hunted through the mountains until they could be cornered and massacred, the French Commissioners were sending back to France millions of gold francs looted indiscriminately from the treasuries of the cities and the private savings of individuals.
These doings caused Bonaparte considerable anxiety, as France's unprovoked attack on the Swiss cantons had alarmed many of the German Princes. With good reason they felt apprehensive that they might become the next victims of the rapacious Republic and that their best means of protecting their territories lay in combining their forces under the leadership of Austria and urging the Emperor to renew the war against France. A fresh outbreak of hostilities on the Continent would have led to many of the best regiments, which Bonaparte had earmarked for his Egyptian expedition, being sent to the Rhine. That was the very last thing he wanted; so he was doing his utmost to restrain the republican belligerency of the Directors and manoeuvre them into taking steps calculated to reassure the Germans.
Nevertheless, no man was more guilty of this bloody plundering of a nation than Bonaparte. When in Italy he had already been dreaming of himself as the Conqueror of the East and, without disclosing their object, making certain preparations which would facilitate his great design. One had been to send a million francs to the authorities at Toulon, to enable them to repair certain warships and thus strengthen the Fleet he would need to escort his transports. On learning of this the Directors had promptly seized the million for their own use. Angry as he was, Bonaparte had not at that time felt himself strong enough to join issue with them; so the warships remained unfit to put to sea.