ad examined the
complaint against Buonaparte received from the commander of the
garrison at Ajaccio. According to a strict interpretation of the
military code there was scarcely a crime which Buonaparte had not
committed: desertion, disobedience, tampering, attack on constituted
authority, and abuse of official power. The minister reported the
conduct of both Quenza and Buonaparte as most reprehensible, and
declared that if their offense had been purely military he would have
court-martialed them.

Learning first at Marseilles that war had broken out, and that the
companies of his regiment were dispersed to various camps for active
service, Buonaparte hastened northward. A new passion, which was
indicative of the freshly awakened patriotism, had taken possession of
the popular fancy. Where the year before the current and universal
phrase had been "federation," the talk was now all for the "nation."
It might well be so. Before the traveler arrived at his destination
further disaster had overtaken the French army, one whole regiment had
deserted under arms to the enemy, and individual soldiers were
escaping by hundreds. The officers of the Fourth Artillery were
resigning and running away in about equal numbers. Consternation ruled
supreme, treason and imbecility were everywhere charged against the
authorities. War within, war without, and the army in a state of
collapse! The emigrant princes would return, and France be sold to a
bondage tenfold more galling than that from which she was struggling
to free herself.

When Buonaparte reached Paris on May twenty-eighth, 1792, the outlook
was poor for a suppliant, bankrupt in funds and nearly so in
reputation; but he was undaunted, and his application for
reinstatement in the artillery was made without the loss of a moment.
A new minister of war had been appointed but a few days before,--there
were six changes in that office during as many months,--and the
assistant now in charge of the artillery seemed favorable to the
request. For a moment he thought of restoring the suppliant to his
position, but events were marching too swiftly, and demands more
urgent jostled aside the claims of an obscure lieutenant with a shady
character. Buonaparte at once grasped the fact that he could win his
cause only by patience or by importunity, and began to consider how he
should arrange for a prolonged stay in the capital. His scanty
resources were already exhausted, but he found Bourrienne,