cult for the so-called regulars,
the soldiers of the Convention, even to obtain subsistence and hold
the territory they already occupied.

The next move of the insurgent Girondists of Marseilles was in the
direction of Paris, and by the first week of July they had reached
Avignon on their way to join forces with their equally successful
friends at Lyons. With characteristic zeal, the Convention had created
an army to meet them. The new force was put under the command of
Carteaux, a civilian, but a man of energy. According to directions
received from Paris, he quickly advanced to cut the enemy in two by
occupying the strategic point of Valence. This move was successfully
made, Lyons was left to fight its own battle, and by the middle of
July the general of the Convention was encamped before the walls of
Avignon.

Napoleon Buonaparte had hastened to Nice, where five companies of his
regiment were stationed, and rejoining the French army, never faltered
again in his allegiance to the tricolor. Jean Duteil, brother of the
young man's former patron, was in the Savoy capital, high in command.
He promptly set the young artillerist at the work of completing the
shore batteries. On July third and eighth, respectively, the new
captain made written reports to the secretary for war at Paris, and to
the director of artillery in the arsenal of Toulon. Both these papers
are succinct and well written. Almost immediately Buonaparte was
intrusted with a mission, probably confidential, since its exact
nature is unknown, and set out for Avignon. He reached his destination
almost in the moment when Carteaux began the investment of the city.
It was about July sixteenth when he entered the republican camp,
having arrived by devious ways, and after narrow escapes from the
enemy's hands. This time he was absent from his post on duty. The
works and guns at Nice being inadequate and almost worthless, he was
probably sent to secure supplies from the stores of Avignon when it
should be conquered. Such were the straits of the needy republican
general that he immediately appointed his visitor to the command of a
strong body of flying artillery. In the first attack on the town
Carteaux received a check. But the insurgents were raw volunteers and
seem to have felt more and more dismayed by the menacing attitude of
the surrounding population: on the twenty-fifth, in the very hour of
victory, they began their retreat.[36] The road to Marseilles was thu