He spoke of his first successes with that feeling of pleasure and gratification which they were naturally calculated to excite in him.
The Government wished to send him to La Vendee, with the rank of brigadier-general of infantry.

Bonaparte rejected this proposition on two grounds.

He thought the scene of action unworthy of his talents, and he regarded his projected removal from the artillery to the infantry as a sort of insult.

This last was his most powerful objection, and was the only one he urged officially.

In consequence of his refusal to accept the appointment offered him, the Committee of Public Safety decreed that he should be struck off the list of general officers.
-- [This statement as to the proposed transfer of Bonaparte to the infantry, his disobedience to the order, and his consequent dismissal, is fiercely attacked in the 'Erreurs', tome i.chap.