“But—­but—­Sire!” uttered the Minister, trembling.

“There exists no ‘but,’ and I will listen to no ‘but,’” interrupted His Majesty.  “Obey my orders without further discussions.  Should Austria dare to arm, I shall, before next Christmas, make Vienna the headquarters of a fiftieth military division.  In an hour I expect you with the despatches ready for Salicetti.”

This Salicetti is a Corsican of a respectable family, born at Bastia, in 1758, and it was he who, during the siege of Toulon in 1793, introduced his countryman, Napoleon Bonaparte, his present Sovereign, to the acquaintance of Barras, an occurrence which has since produced consequences so terribly notorious.

Before the Revolution an advocate of the superior council of Corsica, he was elected a member to the First National Assembly, where, on the 30th of November, 1789, he pressed the decree which declared the Island of Corsica an integral part of the French monarchy.  In 1792, he was sent by his fellow citizens as a deputy to the National Convention, where he joined the terrorist faction, and voted for the death of his King.  In May, 1793, he was in Corsica, and violently opposed the partisans of General Paoli.  Obliged to make his escape in August from that island, to save himself, he joined the army of General Carteaux, then marching against the Marseilles insurgents, whence he was sent by the National Convention with Barras, Gasparin, Robespierre the younger, and Ricrod, as a representative of the people, to the army before Toulon, where, as well as at Marseilles, he shared in all the atrocities committed by his colleagues and by Bonaparte; for which, after the death of the Robespierres, he was arrested with him as a terrorist.

He had not known Bonaparte much in Corsica, but, finding him and his family in great distress, with all other Corsican refugees, and observing his adroitness as a captain of artillery, he recommended him to Barras, and upon their representation to the Committee of Public Safety, he was promoted to a chef de brigade, or colonel.  In 1796, when Barras gave Bonaparte the command of the army of Italy, Salicetti was appointed a Commissary of Government to the same army, and in that capacity behaved with the greatest insolence towards all the Princes of Italy, and most so towards the Duke of Modena, with whom he and Bonaparte signed a treaty of neutrality, for which they received a large sum in ready money; but shortly afterwards the duchy was again invaded, and an attempt made to surprise and seize the Duke.  In 1797 he was chosen a member of the Council of Five Hundred, where he always continued a supporter of violent measures.

When, in 1799, his former protege, Bonaparte, was proclaimed a First Consul, Salicetti desired to be placed in the Conservative Senate; but his familiarity displeased Napoleon, who made him first a commercial agent, and afterwards a Minister to the Ligurian Republic, so as to keep him at a distance.  During his several missions, he has amassed a fortune, calculated, at the lowest, of six millions of livres.