Victory had a sound. In Paris, it was the sound of church bells ringing, of cheering crowds in the streets, and of the rhythmic thud of captured Austrian standards being hammered to the ancient walls of the Notre Dame. It was the sound of a city delirious with patriotic ecstasy, a city that had for months been fed a diet of fear and suspicion and was now gorging itself on the sweet taste of glory.
But in the quiet of his study in the Tuileries, Louis was beginning to realize that victory also had a second, more unsettling sound: the sound of a subordinate's ambition growing dangerously loud.
The news from Italy had continued to be a string of almost unbelievable triumphs, each dispatch from General Bonaparte more stunning than the last. He had not just defeated the Piedmontese-Sardinian army; he had annihilated it, forcing the King of Sardinia to sign a humiliating armistice that took his kingdom out of the war entirely. He had then turned on the Austrians, outmaneuvering their veteran generals, and in a bloody, legendary assault, had personally led his men across a heavily defended bridge at a town called Lodi. Days later, he had entered Milan, the capital of Austrian Lombardy, in triumph, hailed by the local Italian patriots as a liberator.
Paris was drunk on the news. The material fruits of these victories were now arriving daily at the national treasury. Wagonloads of captured gold bullion, extorted from the Duke of Parma. Crates filled with priceless works of art, "requisitioned" from the palaces of Milan to be displayed in the Louvre as trophies of war. General Bonaparte was not just winning battles; he was single-handedly solving the government's financial woes, funding the state with the spoils of his conquest.
Louis, however, was not celebrating. He sat at his desk, not reading the triumphant headlines in Barnave's newspapers, but the full, unedited text of Napoleon's dispatches, and he was reading them with a growing, profound sense of alarm. The young general was no longer behaving like a general. He was behaving like a king.
Bonaparte was not just reporting on military matters. He was acting as a de facto, sovereign head of state in conquered Italy. One dispatch coolly informed the government in Paris that he had created a new nation, the "Cispadane Republic," out of a collection of liberated Italian city-states. He had convened a congress, was overseeing the writing of a constitution, and had appointed its first ministers, all without a single instruction from Paris.
Another dispatch detailed his diplomatic activities. He was conducting his own foreign policy, summoning the envoys of the Pope, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and the neutral Republic of Venice to his headquarters. He was demanding huge, crippling indemnities, threatening invasion, and redrawing the political map of the Italian peninsula by personal decree.
Most disturbingly, he was issuing his own proclamations, not to his soldiers, but to the "People of Italy." They were masterpieces of propaganda, speaking of liberation from tyranny, of the glory of the French army, and of the dawning of a new age of liberty. But the central figure in this glorious new age was not the French Republic, or the King, or the National Assembly. It was him. General Bonaparte. The Liberator.
The final, most alarming dispatch arrived that morning. Napoleon reported that, following his final victory over the Piedmontese, he had personally negotiated and signed a preliminary peace treaty with the defeated Kingdom of Sardinia. The terms were spectacularly favorable to France. But the act itself was a staggering, almost treasonous, overreach of his authority. A general's job was to win battles. The signing of treaties was the sacred prerogative of a government, of a head of state.
Louis convened his secret council. Barnave and Talleyrand read the latest dispatch in silence.
Barnave, the man of the Assembly, the constitutionalist, was the first to explode. His face was flushed with anger. "This is intolerable!" he fumed, pacing the length of the study. "This is a monstrous act of insubordination! He is a general of the Republic, not a Roman Proconsul carving out his own private kingdom! He is acting like a king, issuing decrees, making treaties! You must recall him, Your Majesty! You must have him arrested for exceeding his authority before he becomes more powerful than the state he is supposed to be serving!"
Talleyrand, who was lounging in a wingback chair, his expression one of calm, cynical amusement, sighed softly. "And how, my dear Barnave, do you propose we accomplish that?" he asked, his voice a silken, condescending whisper. "Do you believe the General will simply obey a summons to return to Paris and face a tribunal? The man has fifty thousand veteran soldiers who worship him as a god. An army that is now, thanks to his looting, the best-paid and best-equipped in Europe. To recall him is to invite him to march on Paris, and I assure you, he will not come alone."
He looked at Louis. "Recalling him is impossible. He is, at this precise moment, the most popular man in France besides yourself. To arrest him would be to turn a national hero into a political martyr. The army would certainly mutiny. The Parisian mob, who now see him as the magical source of the cheap bread and public spectacles you have been providing, would burn this palace to the ground. We cannot fight him. He has become too powerful."
Louis was caught in a new and exquisitely dangerous trap. His sword had become so sharp, so powerful, so successful, that he no longer dared to try and sheathe it. He could not fire Napoleon, but he could not allow him to continue acting as an independent, sovereign power. He had to reassert his authority, but in a way that did not provoke a direct confrontation he knew he could not win.
He thought for a long, silent moment. He could not attack the man's power, so he would have to dilute it. He could not challenge his military authority, so he would have to hamstring his political and financial autonomy. It was a classic move of a modern CEO, seeking to manage a brilliant but dangerously rogue division manager. He would not confront him directly. He would surround him with his own people and control him by controlling his resources.
He laid out the clever, subtle plan to his two advisors.
A few days later, a new dispatch was sent to Napoleon's headquarters in Milan. It was a masterpiece of passive-aggressive command, drafted by Talleyrand and edited by Louis himself. It began by showering Bonaparte with the most extravagant praise for his "unprecedented victories" and his "genius which has humbled the enemies of France."
Then, after a full page of effusive flattery, came the sting.
"To support your continued glorious efforts, and to relieve you of the mundane administrative burdens that must surely distract from your military brilliance," Louis had written, "I have, by royal decree, appointed a new civilian authority to manage the… political and financial aspects of your campaign. Commissioner Christophe Saliceti, a man of impeccable revolutionary credentials, a respected deputy of the National Assembly, and, I believe, a fellow Corsican and an old acquaintance of yours, will be arriving at your headquarters shortly. He will, acting with the full authority of the state, take charge of all financial matters, including the negotiation of indemnities and the management of the army's treasury. He will also oversee the logistical requisitions and the civil administration of the newly liberated Italian republics. This will, I am certain, free you, my dear General, to focus entirely on what you do best: waging war and bringing glory to the French nation."
Christophe Saliceti was, of course, a man personally and carefully chosen by Louis. He was a shrewd, ambitious, and deeply corrupt politician, but his loyalty could be bought, and Louis had just bought it. He was being sent to Italy with one, secret mandate: to be the King's eyes and ears, and to reassert the government's control over the river of Italian gold that was flowing into Napoleon's personal war chest. Louis was sending a political commissar, a spy with an official title, to be Napoleon's new shadow. He was not trying to fire his general. He was trying to put a golden leash on him.
The scene cut to Napoleon's magnificent ducal palace headquarters in Milan. He stood by a great window overlooking the city, a conquering hero. An aide brought him the dispatch from Paris. He read it, his expression unreadable. Then he read it a second time. A look of pure, cold fury slowly spread across his face, his eyes narrowing to icy slits. He understood the move perfectly. The politicians in Paris were afraid of him. The King was trying to rein him in, to treat him like a mere employee.
He crushed the dispatch in his fist. The battle of wills between the King and his General had just begun.
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