[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been maintained.]

Napoleon Bonaparte in 1785, aged sixteen.

From sketch made by a comrade;
formerly in the Musée des Souverains, now in the Louvre.

THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE

PH.D., L.H.D., LL.D.
Professor of History in Columbia University

REVISED AND ENLARGED
WITH PORTRAITS

VOLUME I

NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1916

PREFACE TO THE LIBRARY EDITION

This life of Napoleon was first published in 1896 as a book: for the years 1895-96 it ran as a serial in the pages of the Century Magazine. Judging from the sales, it has been read by many tens if not hundreds of thousands of readers; and it has been extensively noticed in the critical journals of both worlds. Throughout these fourteen years the demand has been very large and steady, considering the size and cost of the volumes. Both publishers and author have determined therefore that a library edition was desired by the public, and in that confidence the book has been partly rewritten and entirely remade.

In the main it is the same book as that which has passed through so many editions. But in some respects it has been amplified. The portion relating to the period of youth has been somewhat expanded, the personalities of those nearest to Napoleon have been in some cases more broadly sketched, new chapters have been added to the treatment of the Continental system, the Louisiana Purchase, and the St. Helena epoch. In all the text has been lengthened about one-tenth.

Under the compulsion of physical dimensions the author has minimized the number of authorities and foot-notes. There is really very little controversial matter regarding Napoleon which is not a matter of opinion: the evidence has been so carefully sifted that substantial agreement as to fact has been reached. Accordingly there have been introduced at the opening of chapters or divisions short lists of good references for those who desire to extend their reading: experts know their own way. It is an interesting fact which throws great light on the slight value of foot-notes that while I have had extensive correspondence with my fellow workers, there has come to me in all these years but a single request for the source of two statements, and one demand for the evidence upon which certain opinions were based.

The former editions were duplicate books, a text by me and a commentary of exquisite illustrations by other hands. The divergence was very confusing to serious minds; in this edition there can be no similar perplexity since the illustrations have been confined to portraits.

In putting these volumes through the press, in the preparation of the reference lists for volumes three and four, and in the rearrangement of the bibliography I have had the assistance of Dr. G. A. Hubbell to whom my obligation is hereby acknowledged.

William M. Sloane.
New York, September 1, 1910.

PREFACE

In the closing years of the eighteenth century European society began its effort to get rid of benevolent despotism, so called, and to secure its liberties under forms of constitutional government. The struggle began in France, and spread over the more important lands of continental Europe; its influence was strongly felt in England, and even in the United States. Passing through the phases of constitutional reform, of anarchy, and of military despotism, the movement seemed for a time to have failed, and to outward appearances absolutism was stronger after Waterloo than it had been half a century earlier.

But the force of the revolution was only checked, not spent; and to the awakening of general intelligence, the strengthening of national feeling, and the upbuilding of a sense of common brotherhood among men, produced by the revolutionary struggles of this epoch, Europe owes whatever liberty and free government its peoples now enjoy. At the close of this period national power was no longer in the hands of the aristocracy, nor in those of kings; it had passed into the third social stratum, variously designated as the middle class, the burghers or bourgeoisie, and the third estate, a body of men as little willing to share it with the masses as the kings had been. Nevertheless, the transition once begun could not be stopped, and the advance of manhood suffrage has ever since been proportionate to the capacity of the laboring classes to receive and use it, until now, at last, whatever may be the nominal form of government in any civilized land, its stability depends entirely upon the support of the people as a whole. That which is the basis of all government—the power of the purse—has passed into their hands.

This momentous change was of course a turbulent one—the most turbulent in the history of civilization, as it has proved to be the most comprehensive. Consequently its epoch is most interesting, being dramatic in the highest degree, having brought into prominence men and characters who rank among the great of all time, and having exhibited to succeeding generations the most important lessons in the most vivid light. By common consent the eminent man of the time was Napoleon Bonaparte, the revolution queller, the burgher sovereign, the imperial democrat, the supreme captain, the civil reformer, the victim of circumstances which his soaring ambition used but which his unrivaled prowess could not control. Gigantic in his proportions, and satanic in his fate, his was the most tragic figure on the stage of modern history. While the men of his own and the following generation were still alive, it was almost impossible that the truth should be known concerning his actions or his motives; and to fix his place in general history was even less feasible. What he wrote and said about himself was of course animated by a determination to appear in the best light; what others wrote and said has been biased by either devotion or hatred.

Until within a very recent period it seemed that no man could discuss him or his time without manifesting such strong personal feeling as to vitiate his judgment and conclusions. This was partly due to the lack of perspective, but in the main to ignorance of the facts essential to a sober treatment of the theme. In this respect the last quarter of a century has seen a gradual but radical change, for a band of dispassionate scientific scholars have during that time been occupied in the preparation of material for his life without reference to the advocacy of one theory or another concerning his character. European archives, long carefully guarded, have been thrown open; the diplomatic correspondence of the most important periods has been published; family papers have been examined, and numbers of valuable memoirs have been printed. It has therefore been possible to check one account by another, to cancel misrepresentations, to eliminate passion—in short, to establish something like correct outline and accurate detail, at least in regard to what the man actually did. Those hidden secrets of any human mind which we call motives must ever remain to other minds largely a matter of opinion, but a very fair indication of them can be found when once the actual conduct of the actor has been determined.

This investigation has mainly been the work of specialists, and its results have been published in monographs and technical journals; most of these workers, moreover, were continental scholars writing each in his own language. Its results, as a whole, have therefore not been accessible to the general reader in either America or England. It seems highly desirable that they should be made so, and this has been the effort of the writer. At the same time he claims to be an independent investigator in some of the most important portions of the field he covers. His researches have extended over many years, and it has been his privilege to use original materials which, as far as he knows, have not been used by others. At the close of the book will be found a short account of the papers of Bonaparte's boyhood and youth which the author has read, and of the portions of the French and English archives which were generously put at his disposal, together with a short though reasonably complete bibliography of the published books and papers which really have scientific value. The number of volumes concerned with Napoleon and his epoch is enormous; outside of those mentioned very few have any value except as curiosities of literature.

CHAPTER PAGE

Introduction. [1]
The Bonapartes in Corsica. [20]
Napoleon's Birth and Childhood. [35]
Napoleon's School-days. [48]
In Paris and Valence. [60]
Private Study and Garrison Life. [73]
Further Attempts at Authorship. [83]
The Revolution in France. [100]
Buonaparte and Revolution in Corsica. [111]
First Lessons in Revolution. [123]
Traits of Character. [135]
The Revolution in the Rhone Valley. [148]
Buonaparte the Corsican Jacobin. [160]
Buonaparte the French Jacobin. [180]
A Jacobin Hegira. [199]
"The Supper of Beaucaire" [212]
Toulon. [222]
A Jacobin General. [236]
Vicissitudes in War and Diplomacy. [247]
The End of Apprenticeship. [260]
The Antechamber To Success. [272]
Bonaparte the General of the Convention. [287]
The Day of the Paris Sections. [302]
A Marriage of Inclination and Interest. [313]
Europe and the Directory. [324]
Bonaparte on a Great Stage. [339]
The Conquest of Piedmont and the Milanese. [352]
An Insubordinate Conqueror and Diplomatist. [363]
Bassano and Arcola. [378]
Bonaparte's Imperious Spirit. [393]
Rivoli and the Capitulation of Mantua. [406]
Humiliation of the Papacy and of Venice. [419]
The Preliminaries of Peace—Leoben. [430]
The Fall of Venice. [444]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Napoleon Bonaparte in 1785, aged sixteen. [Frontispiece]
Facing Page
Marie-Lætitia Ramolino Bonaparte "Madame Mère"—Mother of Napoleon I. [50]
Charles Bonaparte, Father of the Emperor Napoleon, 1785. [96]
Bonaparte, General in Chief of the Army of Italy. [176]
Josephine. [226]
Marie-Josephine-Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, called Josephine, Empress of the French. [276]
Bonaparte. [326]
Map of Northern Italy, illustrating the Campaigns of 1796 and 1797. [354]
Josephine, Empress of the French. [374]
Map illustrating the Campaign preceding the Treaty of Campo-Formio, 1797. [414]

SI QUID NOVISTI RECTIUS ISTIS,
CANDIDUS IMPERTI: SI NON, HIS UTERE MECUM

Horace

LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

CHAPTER I.

Introduction.

The Revolutionary Epoch in Europe — Its Dominant Personage — The State System of Europe — The Power of Great Britain — Feebleness of Democracy — The Expectant Attitude of the Continent — Survival of Antiquated Institutions — The American Revolution — Philosophical Sophistries — Rousseau — His Fallacies — Corsica as a Center of Interest — Its Geography — Its Rulers — The People — Sampiero — Revolutions — Spanish Alliance — King Theodore — French Intervention — Supremacy of Genoa — Paoli — His Success as a Liberator — His Plan for Alliance with France — The Policy of Choiseul — Paoli's Reputation — Napoleon's Account of Corsica and of Paoli — Rousseau and Corsica.

Napoleon Bonaparte was the representative man of the epoch which ushered in the nineteenth century. Though an aristocrat by descent, he was in life, in training, and in quality neither that nor a plebeian; he was the typical plain man of his time, exhibiting the common sense of a generation which thought in terms made current by the philosophy of the eighteenth century. His period was the most tumultuous and yet the most fruitful in the world's history. But the progress made in it was not altogether direct; rather was it like the advance of a traveler whirled through the spiral tunnels of the St. Gotthard. Flying from the inclemency of the north, he is carried by the ponderous train due southward into the opening. After a time of darkness he emerges into the open air. But at first sight the goal is no nearer; the direction is perhaps reversed, the skies are more forbidding, the chill is more intense. Only after successive ventures of the same kind is the climax reached, the summit passed, and the vision of sunny plains opened to view. Such experiences are more common to the race than to the individual; the muse of history must note and record them with equanimity, with a buoyancy and hopefulness born of larger knowledge. The movement of civilization in Europe during the latter portion of the eighteenth century was onward and upward, but it was at times not only devious, slow and laborious, but fruitless in immediate results.

We must study the age and the people of any great man if we sincerely desire the truth regarding his strength and weakness, his inborn tendencies and purposes, his failures and successes, the temporary incidents and the lasting, constructive, meritorious achievements of his career. This is certainly far more true of Napoleon than of any other heroic personage; an affectionate awe has sometimes lifted him to heaven, a spiteful hate has often hurled him down to hell. Every nation, every party, faction, and cabal among his own and other peoples, has judged him from its own standpoint of self-interest and self-justification. Whatever chance there may be of reading the secrets of his life lies rather in a just consideration of the man in relation to his times, about which much is known, than in an attempt at the psychological dissection of an enigmatical nature, about which little is known, in spite of the fullness of our information. The abundant facts of his career are not facts at all unless considered in the light not only of a great national life, but of a continental movement which embraced in its day all civilization, not excepting that of Great Britain and America.

The states of Europe are sisters, children of the Holy Roman Empire. In the formation of strong nationalities with differences in language, religion, and institutions the relationship was almost forgotten, and in the intensity of later rivalry is not always even now remembered. It is, however, so close that at any epoch there is traceable a common movement which occupies them all. By the end of the fourteenth century they had secured their modern form in territorial and race unity with a government by monarchy more or less absolute. The fifteenth century saw with the strengthening of the monarchy the renascence of the fine arts, the great inventions, the awakening of enterprise in discovery, the mental quickening which began to call all authority to account. The sixteenth was the age of the Reformation, an event too often belittled by ecclesiastics who discern only its schismatic character, and not sufficiently emphasized by historians as the most pregnant political fact of any age with respect to the rise and growth of free institutions.

The seventeenth century saw in England the triumph of political ideas adapted to the new state of society which had arisen, but subversive of the tyrannical system which had done its work, a work great and good in the creation of peoples and the production of social order out of chaos. For a time it seemed as if the island state were to become the overshadowing influence in all the rest of Europe. By the middle of the century her example had fired the whole continent with notions of political reform. The long campaign which she and her allies waged with varying fortune against Louis XIV, commanding the conservative forces of the Latin blood, and the Roman religion ended unfavorably to the latter. At the close of the Seven Years' War there was not an Englishman in Europe or America or in the colonies at the antipodes whose pulse did not beat high as he saw his motherland triumphant in every quarter of the globe.

But these very successes, intensifying the bitterness of defeat and everything connected with it, prevented among numerous other causes the triumph of constitutional government anywhere in continental Europe. Switzerland was remote and inaccessible; her beacon of democracy burned bright, but its rays scarcely shone beyond the mountain valleys. The Dutch republic, enervated by commercial success and under a constitution which by its intricate system of checks was a satire on organized liberty, had become a warning rather than a model to other nations.

The other members of the great European state family presented a curious spectacle. On every hand there was a cheerful trust in the future. The present was as bad as possible, but belonged to the passing and not to the coming hour. Truth was abroad, felt the philosophers, and must prevail. Feudal privilege, oppression, vice and venality in government, the misery of the poor—all would slowly fade away. The human mind was never keener than in the eighteenth century; reasonableness, hope, and thoroughness characterized its activity. Natural science, metaphysics and historical studies made giant strides, while political theories of a dazzling splendor never equaled before nor since were rife on every side. Such was their power in a buoyant society, awaiting the millennium, that they supplanted entirely the results of observation and experience in the sphere of government.

But neither lever nor fulcrum was strong enough as yet to stir the inert mass of traditional forms. Monarchs still flattered themselves with notions of paternal government and divine right; the nobility still claimed and exercised baseless privileges which had descended from an age when their ancestors held not merely these but the land on which they rested; the burgesses still hugged, as something which had come from above, their dearly bought charter rights, now revealed as inborn liberties. They were thus hardened into a gross contentment dangerous for themselves, and into an indifference which was a menace to others. The great agricultural populations living in various degrees of serfdom still groaned under the artificial oppressions of a society which had passed away. Nominally the peasant might own certain portions of the soil, but he could not enjoy unmolested the airs which blew over it nor the streams which ran through it nor the wild things which trespassed or dwelt on it, while on every side some exasperating demand for the contribution of labor or goods or money confronted him.

In short, the civilized world was in one of those transitional epochs when institutions persist, after the beliefs and conditions which molded them have utterly disappeared. The inertia of such a rock-ribbed shell is terrible, and while sometimes the erosive power of agitation and discussion suffices to weaken and destroy it, more often the volcanic fires of social convulsion are alone strong enough. The first such shock came from within the English-speaking world itself, but not in Europe. The American colonies, appreciating and applying to their own conditions the principles of the English Revolution, began, and with French assistance completed, the movement which erected in another hemisphere the American republic. Weak and tottering in its infancy, but growing ever stronger and therefore milder, its example began at once to suggest the great and peaceful reforms of the English constitution which have since followed. Threatening absolutism in the strong contrasts its citizens presented to the subjects of other lands, it has been ever since the moral support of liberal movements the world around. England herself, instead of being weakened, was strengthened by the child grown to independent maturity, and a double example of prosperity under constitutional administration was now held up to the continent of Europe.

But it is the greatest proof of human weakness that there is no movement however beneficent, no doctrine however sound, no truth however absolute, but that it can be speciously so extended, so expanded, so emphasized as to lose its identity. Coincident with the political speculation of the eighteenth century appeared the storm and stress of romanticism and sentimentalism. The extremes of morbid personal emotion were thought serviceable for daily life, while the middle course of applying ideals to experience was utterly abandoned. The latest nihilism differs little from the conception of the perfect regeneration of mankind by discarding the old merely because it was old which triumphed in the latter half of the eighteenth century among philosophers and wits. To be sure, they had a substitute for whatever was abolished and a supplement for whatever was left incomplete.

Even the stable sense of the Americans was infected by the virus of mere theories. In obedience to the spirit of the age they introduced into their written constitution, which was in the main but a statement of their deep-seated political habits, a scheme like that of the electoral college founded on some high-sounding doctrine, or omitted from it in obedience to a prevalent and temporary extravagance of protest some fundamental truth like that of the Christian character of their government and laws. If there be anywhere a Christian Protestant state it is the United States; if any futile invention were ever incorporated in a written charter it was that of the electoral college. The addition of a vague theory or the omission of essential national qualities in the document of the constitution has affected our subsequent history little or not at all.

But such was not the case in a society still under feudal oppression. Fictions like the contract theory of government, exploded by the sound sense of Burke; political generalizations like certain paragraphs of the French Declaration of Rights, every item of which now and here reads like a platitude but was then and there a vivid revolutionary novelty; emotional yearnings for some vague Utopia—all fell into fruitful soil and produced a rank harvest, mostly of straw and stalks, although there was some sound grain. The thought of the time was a powerful factor in determining the course and the quality of events throughout all Europe. No nation was altogether unmoved. The center of agitation was in France, although the little Calvinistic state of Geneva brought forth the prophet and writer of the times.

Rousseau was a man of small learning but great insight. Originating almost nothing, he set forth the ideas of others with incisive distinctness, often modifying them to their hurt, but giving to the form in which he wrote them an air of seductive practicability and reality which alone threw them into the sphere of action. Examining Europe at large, he found its social and political institutions so hardened and so unresponsive that he declared it incapable of movement without an antecedent general crash and breaking up. No laws, he reasoned, could be made because there were no means by which the general will could express itself, such was the rigidity of absolutism and feudalism. The splendid studies of Montesquieu, which revealed to the French the eternal truths underlying the constitutional changes in England, had enlightened and captivated the best minds of his country, but they were too serious, too cold, too dry to move the quick, bright temperament of the people at large. This was the work of Rousseau. Consummate in his literary power, he laid the ax at the root of the tree in his fierce attack on the prevailing education, sought a new basis for government in his peculiar modification of the contract theory, and constructed a substitute system of sentimental morals to supplant the old authoritative one which was believed to underlie all the prevalent iniquities in religion, politics, and society.

His entire structure lacked a foundation either in history or in reason. But the popular fancy was fascinated. The whole flimsy furniture in the chambers of the general mind vanished. New emotions, new purposes, new sanctions appeared in its stead. There was a sad lack of ethical definitions, an over-zealous iconoclasm as to religion, but there were many high conceptions of regenerating society, of liberty, of brotherhood, of equality. The influence of this movement was literally ubiquitous; it was felt wherever men read or thought or talked, and were connected, however remotely, with the great central movement of civilization.

No land and no family could to all outward appearance be further aside from the main channel of European history in the eighteenth century than the island of Corsica and an obscure family by the name of Buonaparte which had dwelt there since the beginning of the eighteenth century. Yet that isolated land and that unknown family were not merely to be drawn into the movement, they were to illustrate its most characteristic phases. Rousseau, though mistakenly, forecast a great destiny for Corsica, declaring in his letters on Poland that it was the only European land capable of movement, of law-making, of peaceful renovation. It was small and remote, but it came near to being an actual exemplification of his favorite and fundamental dogma concerning man in a state of nature, of order as arising from conflict, of government as resting on general consent and mutual agreement among the governed. Toward Corsica, therefore, the eyes of all Europe had long been directed. There, more than elsewhere, the setting of the world-drama seemed complete in miniature, and, in the closing quarter of the eighteenth century, the action was rapidly unfolding a plot of universal interest.

A lofty mountain-ridge divides the island into eastern and western districts. The former is gentler in its slopes, and more fertile. Looking, as it does, toward Italy, it was during the middle ages closely bound in intercourse with that peninsula; richer in its resources than the other part, it was more open to outside influences, and for this reason freer in its institutions. The rugged western division had come more completely under the yoke of feudalism, having close affinity in sympathy, and some relation in blood, with the Greek, Roman, Saracenic, and Teutonic race-elements in France and Spain. The communal administration of the eastern slope, however, prevailed eventually in the western as well, and the differences of origin, wealth, and occupation, though at times the occasion of intestine discord, were as nothing compared with the common characteristics which knit the population of the entire island into one national organization, as much a unit as their insular territory.

The people of this small commonwealth were in the main of Italian blood. Some slight connection with the motherland they still maintained in the relations of commerce, and by the education of their professional men at Italian schools. While a small minority supported themselves as tradesmen or seafarers, the mass of the population was dependent for a livelihood upon agriculture. As a nation they had long ceased to follow the course of general European development. They had been successively the subjects of Greece, Rome, and the Califate, of the German-Roman emperors, and of the republic of Pisa. Their latest ruler was Genoa, which had now degenerated into an untrustworthy oligarchy. United to that state originally by terms which gave the island a "speaker" or advocate in the Genoese senate, and recognized the most cherished habits of a hardy, natural-minded, and primitive people, they had little by little been left a prey to their own faults in order that their unworthy mistress might plead their disorders as an excuse for her tyranny. Agriculture languished, and the minute subdivision of arable land finally rendered its tillage almost profitless.

Among a people who are isolated not only as islanders, but also as mountaineers, old institutions are particularly tenacious of life: that of the vendetta, or blood revenge, with the clanship it accompanies, never disappeared from Corsica. In the centuries of Genoese rule the carrying of arms was winked at, quarrels became rife, and often family confederations, embracing a considerable part of the country, were arrayed one against the other in lawless violence. The feudal nobility, few in number, were unrecognized, and failed to cultivate the industrial arts in the security of costly strongholds as their class did elsewhere, while the fairest portions of land not held by them were gradually absorbed by the monasteries, a process favored by Genoa as likely to render easier the government of a turbulent people. The human animal, however, throve. Rudely clad in homespun, men and women alike cultivated a simplicity of dress surpassed only by their plain living. There was no wealth except that of fields and flocks, their money consequently was debased and almost worthless. The social distinctions of noble and peasant survived only in tradition, and all classes intermingled without any sense of superiority or inferiority. Elegance of manner, polish, grace, were unsought and existed only by natural refinement, which was rare among a people who were on the whole simple to boorishness. Physically they were, however, admirable. All visitors were struck by the repose and self-reliance of their countenances. The women were neither beautiful, stylish, nor neat. Yet they were considered modest and attractive. The men were more striking in appearance and character. Of medium stature and powerful mold, with black hair, fine teeth, and piercing eyes; with well-formed, agile, and sinewy limbs; sober, brave, trustworthy, and endowed with many other primitive virtues as well, the Corsican was everywhere sought as a soldier, and could be found in all the armies of the southern continental states.

In their periodic struggles against Genoese encroachments and tyranny, the Corsicans had produced a line of national heroes. Sampiero, one of these, had in the sixteenth century incorporated Corsica for a brief hour with the dominions of the French crown, and was regarded as the typical Corsican. Dark, warlike, and revengeful, he had displayed a keen intellect and a fine judgment. Simple in his dress and habits, untainted by the luxury then prevalent in the courts of Florence and Paris, at both of which he resided for considerable periods, he could kill his wife without a shudder when she put herself and child into the hands of his enemies to betray him. Hospitable and generous, but untamed and terrible; brusque, dictatorial, and without consideration or compassion; the offspring of his times and his people, he stands the embodiment of primeval energy, physical and mental.

The submission of a people like this to a superior force was sullen, and in the long century which followed, the energies generally displayed in a well-ordered life seemed among them to be not quenched but directed into the channels of their passions and their bodily powers, which were ready on occasion to break forth in devastating violence. In 1729 began a succession of revolutionary outbursts, and at last in 1730 the communal assemblies united in a national convention, choosing two chiefs, Colonna-Ceccaldi and Giafferi, to lead in the attempt to rouse the nation to action and throw off the unendurable yoke. English philanthropists furnished the munitions of war. The Genoese were beaten in successive battles, even after they brought into the field eight thousand German mercenaries purchased from the Emperor Charles VI. The Corsican adventurers in foreign lands, pleading for their liberties with artless eloquence at every court, filled Europe with enthusiasm for their cause and streamed back to fight for their homes. A temporary peace on terms which granted all they asked was finally arranged through the Emperor's intervention.

But the two elected chiefs, and a third patriot, Raffaelli, having been taken prisoners by the Genoese, were ungenerously kept in confinement, and released only at the command of Charles. Under the same leaders, now further exasperated by their ill usage, began and continued another agitation, this time for separation and complete emancipation. Giafferi's chosen adjutant was a youth of good family and excellent parts, Hyacinth Paoli. In the then existing complications of European politics the only available helper was the King of Spain, and to him the Corsicans now applied, but his undertakings compelled him to refuse. Left without allies or any earthly support, the pious Corsicans naïvely threw themselves on the protection of the Virgin and determined more firmly than ever to secure their independence.

In this crisis appeared at the head of a considerable following, some hundreds in number, the notorious and curious German adventurer, Theodore von Neuhof, who, declaring that he represented the sympathy of the great powers for Corsica, made ready to proclaim himself as king. As any shelter is welcome in a storm, the people accepted him, and he was crowned on April fifteenth, 1736. But although he spoke truthfully when he claimed to represent the sympathy of the powers, he did not represent their strength, and was defeated again and again in encounters with the forces of Genoa. The oligarchy had now secured an alliance with France, which feared lest the island might fall into more hostile and stronger hands; and before the close of the year the short-lived monarchy ended in the disappearance of Theodore I of Corsica from his kingdom and soon after, in spite of his heroic exertions, from history.

The truth was that some of the nationalist leaders had not forgotten the old patriotic leaning towards France which had existed since the days of Sampiero, and were themselves in communication with the French court and Cardinal Fleury. A French army landed in February, 1738, and was defeated. An overwhelming force was then despatched and the insurrection subsided. In the end France, though strongly tempted to hold what she had conquered, kept her promise to Genoa and disarmed the Corsicans; on the other hand, however, she consulted her own interest and attempted to soothe the islanders by guaranteeing to them national rights. Such, however, was the prevalent bitterness that many patriots fled into exile; some, like Hyacinth Paoli, choosing the pay of Naples for themselves and followers, others accepting the offer of France and forming according to time-honored custom a Corsican regiment of mercenaries which took service in the armies of the King. Among the latter were two of some eminence, Buttafuoco and Salicetti. The half measures of Fleury left Corsica, as he intended, ready to fall into his hands when opportunity should be ripe. Even the patriotic leaders were now no longer in harmony. Those in Italy were of the old disinterested line and suspicious of their western neighbor; the others were charged with being the more ambitious for themselves and careless of their country's liberty. Both classes, however, claimed to be true patriots.

During the War of the Austrian Succession it seemed for a moment as if Corsica were to be freed by the attempt of Maria Theresa to overthrow Genoa, then an ally of the Bourbon powers. The national party rose again under Gaffori, the regiments of Piedmont came to their help, and the English fleet delivered St. Florent and Bastia into their hands. But the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) left things substantially as they were before the war, and in 1752 a new arrangement unsatisfactory to both parties was made with Genoa. It was virtually dictated by Spain and France, England having been alienated by the quarrels and petty jealousies of the Corsican leaders, and lasted only as long as the French occupation continued. Under the leadership of the same dauntless Gaffori who in 1740 had been chosen along with Matra to be a chief commander, the Genoese were once more driven from the highlands into the coast towns. At the height of his success the bold guerrilla fell a victim to family rivalries and personal spite. Through the influence of his despairing foes a successful conspiracy was formed and in the autumn of 1753 he was foully murdered.

But the greatest of these national heroes was also the last—Pascal Paoli. Fitted for his task by birth, by capacity, by superior training, this youth was in 1755 made captain-general of the island, a virtual dictator in his twenty-ninth year. His success was as remarkable as his measures were wise. Elections were regulated so that strong organization was introduced into the loose democratic institutions which had hitherto prevented sufficient unity of action in troubled times. An army was created from the straggling bands of volunteers, and brigandage was suppressed. Wise laws were enacted and enforced—among them one which made the blood-avenger a murderer, instead of a hero as he had been. Moreover, the foundations of a university were laid in the town of Corte, which was the hearthstone of the liberals because it was the natural capital of the west slope, connected by difficult and defensible paths with every cape and bay and intervale of the rocky and broken coast. The Genoese were gradually driven from the interior, and finally they occupied but three harbor towns.

Through skilful diplomacy Paoli created a temporary breach between his oppressors and the Vatican, which, though soon healed, nevertheless enabled him to recover important domains for the state, and prevented the Roman hierarchy from using its enormous influence over the superstitious people utterly to crush the movement for their emancipation. His extreme and enlightened liberalism is admirably shown by his invitation to the Jews, with their industry and steady habits, to settle in Corsica, and to live there in the fullest enjoyment of civil rights, according to the traditions of their faith and the precepts of their law. "Liberty," he said, "knows no creed. Let us leave such distinctions to the Inquisition." Commerce, under these influences, began to thrive. New harbors were made and fortified, while the equipment of a few gunboats for their defense marked the small beginnings of a fleet. The haughty men of Corsica, changing their very nature for a season, began to labor with their hands by the side of their wives and hired assistants; to agriculture, industry, and the arts was given an impulse which promised to be lasting.

The rule of Paoli was not entirely without disturbance. From time to time there occurred rebellious outbreaks of petty factions like that headed by Matra, a disappointed rival. But on the whole they were of little importance. Down to 1765 the advances of the nationalists were steady, their battles being won against enormous odds by the force of their warlike nature, which sought honor above all things, and could, in the words of a medieval chronicle, "endure without a murmur watchings and pains, hunger and cold, in its pursuit—which could even face death without a pang." Finally it became necessary, as the result of unparalleled success in domestic affairs, that a foreign policy should be formulated. Paoli's idea was an offensive and defensive alliance with France on terms recognizing the independence of Corsica, securing an exclusive commercial reciprocity between them, and promising military service with an annual tribute from the island. This idea of France as a protector without administrative power was held by the majority of patriots.

But Choiseul, the minister of foreign affairs under Louis XV, would entertain no such visionary plan. It was clear to every one that the island could no longer be held by its old masters. He had found a facile instrument for the measures necessary to his contemplated seizure of it in the son of a Corsican refugee, that later notorious Buttafuoco, who, carrying water on both shoulders, had ingratiated himself with his father's old friends, while at the same time he had for years been successful as a French official. Corsica was to be seized by France as a sop to the national pride, a slight compensation for the loss of Canada, and he was willing to be the agent. On August sixth, 1764, was signed a provisional agreement between Genoa and France by which the former was to cede for four years all her rights of sovereignty, and the few places she still held in the island, in return for the latter's intervention to thwart Paoli's plan for securing virtual independence. At the end of the period France was to pay Genoa the millions owed to her.

By this time the renown of Paoli had filled all Europe. As a statesman he had skilfully used the European entanglements both of the Bourbon-Hapsburg alliance made in 1756, and of the alliances consequent to the Seven Years' War, for whatever possible advantage might be secured to his people and their cause. As a general he had found profit even in defeat, and had organized his little forces to the highest possible efficiency, displaying prudence, fortitude, and capacity. His personal character was blameless, and could be fearlessly set up as a model. He was a convincing orator and a wise legislator. Full of sympathy for his backward compatriots, he knew their weaknesses, and could avoid the consequences, while he recognized at the same time their virtues, and made the fullest use of them. Above all, he had the wide horizon of a philosopher, understanding fully the proportions and relations to each other of epochs and peoples, not striving to uplift Corsica merely in her own interest, but seeking to find in her regeneration a leverage to raise the world to higher things. So gracious, so influential, so far-seeing, so all-embracing was his nature, that Voltaire called him "the lawgiver and the glory of his people," while Frederick the Great dedicated to him a dagger with the inscription, "Libertas, Patria." The shadows in his character were that he was imperious and arbitrary; so overmastering that he trained the Corsicans to seek guidance and protection, thus preventing them from acquiring either personal independence or self-reliance. Awaiting at every step an impulse from their adored leader, growing timid in the moment when decision was imperative, they did not prove equal to their task. Without his people Paoli was still a philosopher; without him they became in succeeding years a byword, and fell supinely into the arms of a less noble subjection. In this regard the comparison between him and Washington, so often instituted, utterly breaks down.

"Corsica," wrote in 1790 a youth destined to lend even greater interest than Paoli to that name—"Corsica has been a prey to the ambition of her neighbors, the victim of their politics and of her own wilfulness.... We have seen her take up arms, shake the atrocious power of Genoa, recover her independence, live happily for an instant; but then, pursued by an irresistible fatality, fall again into intolerable disgrace. For twenty-four centuries these are the scenes which recur again and again; the same changes, the same misfortune, but also the same courage, the same resolution, the same boldness.... If she trembled for an instant before the feudal hydra, it was only long enough to recognize and destroy it. If, led by a natural feeling, she kissed, like a slave, the chains of Rome, she was not long in breaking them. If, finally, she bowed her head before the Ligurian aristocracy, if irresistible forces kept her twenty years in the despotic grasp of Versailles, forty years of mad warfare astonished Europe, and confounded her enemies."

The same pen wrote of Paoli that by following traditional lines he had not only shown in the constitution he framed for Corsica a historic intuition, but also had found "in his unparalleled activity, in his warm, persuasive eloquence, in his adroit and far-seeing genius," a means to guarantee it against the attacks of wicked foes.

Such was the country in whose fortunes the "age of enlightenment" was so interested. Montesquieu had used its history to illustrate the loss and recovery of privilege and rights; Rousseau had thought the little isle would one day fill all Europe with amazement. When the latter was driven into exile for his utterances, and before his flight to England, Paoli offered him a refuge. Buttafuoco, who represented the opinion that Corsica for its own good must be incorporated with France, and not merely come under her protection, had a few months previously also invited the Genevan prophet to visit the island, and outline a constitution for its people. But the snare was spread in vain. In the letter which with polished phrase declined the task, on the ground of its writer's ill-health, stood the words: "I believe that under their present leader the Corsicans have nothing to fear from Genoa. I believe, moreover, that they have nothing to fear from the troops which France is said to be transporting to their shores. What confirms me in this feeling is that, in spite of the movement, so good a patriot as you seem to be continues in the service of the country which sends them." Paoli was of the same opinion, and remained so until his rude awakening in 1768.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER II.

The Bonapartes in Corsica.

The French Occupy Corsica — Paoli Deceived — Treaty between France and Genoa — English Intervention Vain — Paoli in England — British Problems — Introduction of the French Administrative System — Paoli's Policy — The Coming Man — Origin of the Bonapartes — The Corsican Branch — Their Nobility — Carlo Maria di Buonaparte — Maria Letizia Ramolino — Their Marriage and Naturalization as French Subjects — Their Fortunes — Their Children.

1764-72.

The preliminary occupation of Corsica by the French was ostensibly formal. The process was continued, however, until the formality became a reality, until the fortifications of the seaport towns ceded by Genoa were filled with troops. Then, for the first time, the text of the convention between the two powers was communicated to Paoli. Choiseul explained through his agent that by its first section the King guaranteed the safety and liberty of the Corsican nation. But, no doubt, he forgot to explain the double dealing in the second section. Thereby in the Italian form the Corsicans were in return to take "all right and proper measures dictated by their sense of justice and natural moderation to secure the glory and interest of the republic of Genoa," while in the French form they were "to yield to the Genoese all 'they' thought necessary to the glory and interests of their republic." Who were the "they"?—the Corsicans or the Genoese? Paoli's eye was fixed on the acknowledgment of Corsican independence; he was hoodwinked completely as to the treachery in this second section, the meaning of which, according to diplomatic usage, was settled by the interpretation which the language employed for one form put upon that in which the other was written. Combining the two translations, Italian and French, of the second section, and interpreting one by the other, the Genoese were still the arbiters of Corsican conduct and the promise of liberty contained in the first section was worthless.

Four years passed: apparently they were uneventful, but in reality Choiseul made good use of his time. Through Buttafuoco he was in regular communication with that minority among the Corsicans which desired incorporation. By the skilful manipulation of private feuds, and the unstinted use of money, this minority was before long turned into a majority. Toward the close of 1767 Choiseul began to show his hand by demanding absolute possession for France of at least two strong towns. Paoli replied that the demand was unexpected, and required consideration by the people; the answer was that the King of France could not be expected to mingle in Corsican affairs without some advantage for himself. To gain time, Paoli chose Buttafuoco as his plenipotentiary, despatched him to Versailles, and thus fell into the very trap so carefully set for him by his opponent. He consented as a compromise that Corsica should join the Bourbon-Hapsburg league. More he could not grant for love of his wild, free Corsicans, and he cherished the secret conviction that, Genoa being no longer able to assert her sovereignty, France would never allow another power to intervene, and so, for the sake of peace, might accept this solution.

But the great French minister was a master of diplomacy and would not yield. In his designs upon Corsica he had little to fear from European opposition. He knew how hampered England was by the strength of parliamentary opposition, and the unrest of her American colonies. The Sardinian monarchy was still weak, and quailed under the jealous eyes of her strong enemies. Austria could not act without breaking the league so essential to her welfare, while the Bourbon courts of Spain and Naples would regard the family aggrandizement with complacency. Moreover, something must be done to save the prestige of France: her American colonial empire was lost; Catherine's brilliant policy, and the subsequent victories of Russia in the Orient, were threatening what remained of French influence in that quarter. Here was a propitious moment to emulate once more the English: to seize a station on the Indian highroad as valuable as Gibraltar or Port Mahon, and to raise high hopes of again recovering, if not the colonial supremacy among nations, at least that equality which the Seven Years' War had destroyed. Without loss of time, therefore, the negotiations were ended, and Buttafuoco was dismissed. On May fifteenth, 1768, the price to be paid having been fixed, a definitive treaty with Genoa was signed whereby she yielded the exercise of sovereignty to France, and Corsica passed finally from her hands. Paoli appealed to the great powers against this arbitrary transfer, but in vain.

The campaign of subjugation opened at once, Buttafuoco, with a few other Corsicans, taking service against his kinsfolk. The soldiers of the Royal Corsican regiment, which was in the French service, and which had been formed under his father's influence, flatly refused to fight their brethren. The French troops already in the island were at once reinforced, but during the first year of the final conflict the advantage was all with the patriots; indeed, there was one substantial victory on October seventh, 1768, that of Borgo, which caused dismay at Versailles. Once more Paoli hoped for intervention, especially that of England, whose liberal feeling would coincide with his interest in keeping Corsica from France. Money and arms were sent from Great Britain, but that was all. This conduct of the British ministry was afterward recalled by France as a precedent for rendering aid to the Americans in their uprising against England.

The following spring an army of no less than twenty thousand men was despatched from France to make short and thorough work of the conquest. The previous year of bloody and embittered conflict had gone far to disorganize the patriot army. It was only with the utmost difficulty that the little bands of mountain villagers could be tempted away from the ever more necessary defense of their homes and firesides. Yet in spite of disintegration before such overwhelming odds, and though in want both of ordinary munitions and of the very necessities of life, the forces of Paoli continued a fierce and heroic resistance. It was only after months of devastating, heartrending, hopeless warfare, that their leader, utterly routed in the affair known as the battle of Ponte Nuovo, finally gave up the desperate cause. Exhausted, and without resources, he would have been an easy prey to the French; but they were too wise to take him prisoner. On June thirteenth, 1769, by their connivance he escaped, with three hundred and forty of his most devoted supporters, on two English vessels, to the mainland. His goal was England. The journey was a long, triumphant procession from Leghorn through Germany and Holland; the honors showered on him by the liberals in the towns through which he passed were such as are generally paid to victory, not to defeat. Kindly received and entertained, he lived for the next thirty years in London, the recipient from the government of twelve hundred pounds a year as a pension.

The year 1770 saw the King of France apparently in peaceful possession of that Corsican sovereignty which he claimed to have bought from Genoa. His administration was soon and easily inaugurated, and there was nowhere any interference from foreign powers. Philanthropic England had provided for Paoli, but would do no more, for she was busy at home with a transformation of her parties. The old Whig party was disintegrating; the new Toryism was steadily asserting itself in the passage of contemptuous measures for oppressing the American colonies. She was, moreover, soon to be so absorbed in her great struggle on both sides of the globe that interest in Corsica and the Mediterranean must remain for a long time in abeyance.

But the establishment of a French administration in the King's new acquisition did not proceed smoothly. The party favorable to incorporation with France had grown, and, in the rush to side with success, it now probably far outnumbered that of the old patriots. At the outset this majority faithfully supported the conquerors in an attempt, honorable to both, to retain as much of Paoli's system as possible. But the appointment of an intendant and a military commander acting as royal governor with a veto over legislation was essential. This of necessity destroyed the old democracy, for, in any case, the existence of such officials and the social functions of such offices must create a quasi-aristocracy, and its power would rest not on popular habit and good-will, but on the French soldiery. The situation was frankly recognized, therefore, in a complete reorganization of those descended from the old nobility, and from these a council of twelve was selected to support and countenance the governor. The clergy and the third estate were likewise formally organized in two other orders, so that with clergy, nobles, and commons, Corsica became a French pays d'état, another provincial anachronism in the chaos of royal administration. The class bitterness of the mainland could easily be and was transplanted to the island; the ultimate success of the process left nothing to be desired. Moreover, the most important offices were given into French hands, while the seat of government was moved from Corte, the highland capital, to the lowland towns of Bastia and Ajaccio. The primeval feud of highlanders and lowlanders was thus rekindled, and in the subsequent agitations the patriots won over by France either lost influence with their followers, or ceased to support the government. Old animosities were everywhere revived and strengthened, until finally the flames burst forth in open rebellion. They were, of course, suppressed, but the work was done with a savage thoroughness the memory of which long survived to prevent the formation in the island of a natural sentiment friendly to the French. Those who professed such a feeling were held in no great esteem.

It was perhaps an error that Paoli did not recognize the indissoluble bonds of race and speech as powerfully drawing Corsica to Italy, disregard the leanings of the democratic mountaineers toward France, sympathize with the fondness of the towns for the motherland, and so use his influence as to confirm the natural alliance between the insular Italians and those of the peninsula. When we regard Sardinia, however, time seems to have justified him. There is little to choose between the sister islands as regards the backward condition of both; but the French department of Corsica is, at least, no less advanced than the Italian province of Sardinia. The final amalgamation of Paoli's country with France, which was in a measure the result of his leaning toward a French protectorate, accomplished one end, however, which has rendered it impossible to separate her from the course of great events, from the number of the mighty agents in history. Curiously longing in his exile for a second Sampiero to have wielded the physical power while he himself should have become a Lycurgus, Paoli's wish was to be half-way fulfilled in that a warrior greater than Sampiero was about to be born in Corsica, one who should, by the very union so long resisted, come, as the master of France, to wield a power strong enough to shatter both tyrannies and dynasties, thus clearing the ground for a lawgiving closely related to Paoli's own just and wise conceptions of legislation.

The coming man was to be a typical Corsican, moreover. Born in the agony of his fatherland, he was to combine all the important qualities of his folk in himself. Like them, he was to be short, with wonderful eyes and beautiful teeth; temperate; quietly, even meanly, clad; generous, grateful for any favor, however small; masterful, courageous, impassive, shrewd, resolute, fluent of speech; profoundly religious, even superstitious; hot-tempered, inscrutable, mendacious, revengeful sometimes and ofttimes forgiving, disdainful of woman and her charms; above all, boastful, conceited, and with a passion for glory. His pride and his imagination were to be barbaric in their immensity, his clannishness was to be that of the most primitive civilization. In all these points he was to be Corsican; other characteristics he was to acquire from the land of his adoption through an education French both in affairs and in books; but he was after all Corsican from the womb to the grave; that in the first degree, and only secondarily French, while his cosmopolitan disguise was to be scarcely more than a mask to be raised or lowered at pleasure.

This scion was to come from the stock which at first bore the name of Bonaparte, or, as the heraldic etymology later spelled it, Buonaparte. There were branches of the same stock, or, at least, of the same name, in other parts of Italy. Three towns at least claimed to be the seat of a family with this patronymic: and one of them, Treviso, possessed papers to prove the claim. Although other members of his family based absurd pretensions of princely origin on these insufficient proofs, Napoleon himself was little impressed by them. He was disposed to declare that his ancestry began in his own person, either at Toulon or from the eighteenth of Brumaire. Whatever the origin of the Corsican Buonapartes, it was neither royal from the twin brother of Louis XIV, thought to be the Iron Mask; nor imperial from the Julian gens, nor Greek, nor Saracen, nor, in short, anything which later-invented and lying genealogies declared it to be. But it was almost certainly Italian, and probably patrician, for in 1780 a Tuscan gentleman of the name devised a scanty estate to his distant Corsican kinsman. The earliest home of the family was Florence; later they removed for political reasons to Sarzana, in Tuscany, where for generations men of that name exercised the profession of advocate. The line was extinguished in 1799 by the death of Philip Buonaparte, a canon and a man of means, who, although he had recognized his kin in Corsica to the extent of interchanging hospitalities, nevertheless devised his estate to a relative named Buonacorsi.

The Corsican branch were persons of some local consequence in their latest seats, partly because of their Italian connections, partly in their substantial possessions of land, and partly through the official positions which they held in the city of Ajaccio. Their sympathies as lowlanders and townspeople were with the country of their origin and with Genoa. During the last years of the sixteenth century that republic authorized a Jerome, then head of the family, to prefix the distinguishing particle "di" to his name; but the Italian custom was averse to its use, which was not revived until later, and then only for a short time. Nine generations are recorded as having lived on Corsican soil within two centuries and a quarter. They were evidently men of consideration, for they intermarried with the best families of the island; Ornano, Costa, Bozzi, and Colonna are names occurring in their family records.

Nearly two centuries passed before the grand duke of Tuscany issued formal patents in 1757, attesting the Buonaparte nobility. It was Joseph, the grandsire of Napoleon, who received them. Soon afterward he announced that the coat-armor of the family was "la couronne de compte, l'écusson fendu par deux barres et deux étoilles, avec les lettres B. P. qui signifient Buona Parte, le fond des armes rougeâtres, les barres et les étoilles bleu, les ombrements et la couronne jaune!" Translated as literally as such doubtful language and construction can be, this signifies: "A count's coronet, the escutcheon with two bends sinister and two stars, bearing the letters B. P., which signify Buonaparte, the field of the arms red, the bends and stars blue, the letters and coronet yellow!" In heraldic parlance this would be: Gules, two bends sinister between two estoiles azure charged with B. P. for Buona Parte, or; surmounted by a count's coronet of the last. In 1759 the same sovereign granted further the title of patrician. Charles, the son of Joseph, received a similar grant from the Archbishop of Pisa in 1769. These facts have a substantial historical value, since by reason of them the family was duly and justly recognized as noble in 1771 by the French authorities, and as a consequence, eight years later, the most illustrious scion of the stem became, as a recognized aristocrat, the ward of a France which was still monarchical. Reading between the lines of such a narrative, it appears as if the short-lived family of Corsican lawyers had some difficulty in preserving an influence proportionate to their descent, and therefore sought to draw all the strength they could from a bygone grandeur, easily forgotten by their neighbors in their moderate circumstances at a later day. Still later, when all ci-devant aristocrats were suspects in France, and when the taint of nobility sufficed to destroy those on whom it rested, Napoleon denied his quality: the usual inquest as to veracity was not made and he went free. This escape he owed partly to the station he had reached, partly to the fact that his family claims had been based on birth so obscure at the time as to subject the claimants to good-natured raillery.

No task had lain nearer to Paoli's heart than to unite in one nation the two factions into which he found his people divided. Accordingly, when Carlo Maria di Buonaparte, the single stem on which the consequential lowland family depended for continuance, appeared at Corte to pursue his studies, the stranger was received with flattering kindness, and probably, as one account has it, was appointed to a post of emolument and honor as Paoli's private secretary. The new patrician, according to a custom common among Corsicans of his class, determined to take his degree at Pisa, and in November, 1769, he was made doctor of laws by that university. Many pleasant and probably true anecdotes have been told to illustrate the good-fellowship of the young advocate among his comrades while a student. There are likewise narratives of his persuasive eloquence and of his influence as a patriot, but these sound mythical. In short, an organized effort of sycophantic admirers, who would, if possible, illuminate the whole family in order to heighten Napoleon's renown, has invented fables and distorted facts to such a degree that the entire truth as to Charles's character is hard to discern. Certain undisputed facts, however, throw a strong light upon Napoleon's father. His people were proud and poor; he endured the hardships of poverty with equanimity. Strengthening what little influence he could muster, he at first appears ambitious, and has himself described in his doctor's diploma as a patrician of Florence, San Miniato, and Ajaccio. His character is little known except by the statements of his own family. They declared that he was a spendthrift. He spent two years' income, about twelve hundred dollars, in celebrating with friends the taking of his degree. He would have sold not only the heavily mortgaged estates inherited by himself, but also those of his wife, except for the fierce remonstrances of his heirs. He could write clever verse, he was a devotee of belles-lettres, and a sceptic in the fashion of the time. Self-indulgent, he was likewise bitterly opposed to all family discipline. His figure was slight and lithe, his expression alert and intelligent, his eyes gray blue and his head large. He was ambitious, indefatigable as a place-hunter, suave, elegant, and irrepressible.

On the other hand, with no apparent regard for his personal advancement by marriage, he followed his own inclination, and in 1764, at the age of eighteen, gallantly wedded a beautiful child of fifteen, Maria Letizia Ramolino. Her descent, though excellent and, remotely, even noble, was inferior to that of her husband, but her fortune was equal, if not superior, to his. Her father was a Genoese official of importance; her mother, daughter of a petty noble by a peasant wife, became a widow in 1755 and two years later was married again to Francis Fesch, a Swiss, captain in the Genoese navy. Of this union, Joseph, later Cardinal Fesch, was the child. Although well born, the mother of Napoleon had no education and was of peasant nature to the last day of her long life—hardy, unsentimental, frugal, avaricious, and sometimes unscrupulous. Yet for all that, the hospitality of her little home in Ajaccio was lavish and famous. Among the many guests who were regularly entertained there was Marbeuf, commander in Corsica of the first army of occupation. There was long afterward a malicious tradition that the French general was Napoleon's father. The morals of Letizia di Buonaparte, like those of her conspicuous children, have been bitterly assailed, but her good name, at least, has always been vindicated. The evident motive of the story sufficiently refutes such an aspersion as it contains. Of the bride's extraordinary beauty there has never been a doubt. She was a woman of heroic mold, like Juno in her majesty; unmoved in prosperity, undaunted in adversity. It was probably to his mother, whom he strongly resembled in childhood, that the famous son owed his tremendous and unparalleled physical endurance.

After their marriage the youthful pair resided in Corte, waiting until events should permit their return to Ajaccio. Naturally of an indolent temperament, the husband, though he had at first been drawn into the daring enterprises of Paoli, and had displayed a momentary enthusiasm, was now, as he had been for more than a year, weary of them. At the head of a body of men of his own rank, he finally withdrew to Monte Rotondo, and on May twenty-third, 1769, a few weeks before Paoli's flight, the band made formal submission to Vaux, commander of the second army of occupation, explaining through Buonaparte that the national leader had misled them by promises of aid which never came, and that, recognizing the impossibility of further resistance, they were anxious to accept the new government, to return to their homes, and to resume the peaceful conduct of their affairs. This at least is the generally accepted account of his desertion of Paoli's cause: there is some evidence that having followed Clement, a brother of Pascal, into a remoter district, he had there found no support for the enterprise, and had thence under great hardships of flood and field made his way with wife and child to the French headquarters. The result was the same in either case. It was the precipitate naturalization of the father as a French subject which made his great son a Frenchman. Less than three months afterward, on August fifteenth, the fourth child, Napoleone di Buonaparte, was born in Ajaccio, the seat of French influence.

The resources of the Buonapartes, as they still wrote themselves, were small, although their family and expectations were large. Charles himself was the owner of a considerable estate in houses and lands, but everything was heavily mortgaged and his income was small. He had further inherited a troublesome law plea, the prosecution of which was expensive. By an entail in trust of a great-great-grandfather, important lands were entailed in the male line of the Odone family. In default of regular descent, the estate was vested in the female line, and should, when Charles's maternal uncle died childless, have reverted to his mother. But the uncle had made a will bequeathing his property to the Jesuits, who swiftly took possession and had maintained their ownership by occupation and by legal quibbles. Joseph, the father of Charles, had wasted many years and most of his fortune in weary litigation. Nothing daunted, Charles settled down to pursue the same phantom, virtually depending for a livelihood on the patrimony of his wife. Letitia Buonaparte, being an only child, had fallen heir to her father's property on the second marriage of her mother. The stepfather was an excellent Swiss, a Protestant from Basel, thoroughly educated, and interested in education, and for years a mercenary in the Genoese service. On his retirement he became a Roman Catholic in order to secure the woman of his choice. He was the father of Letitia's half brother, Joseph. The retired officer, though kindly disposed to the family he had entered, had little but his pension and savings: he could contribute nothing but good, sound common sense and his homely ideas of education. The real head of the family was the uncle of Charles, Lucien Buonaparte, archdeacon of the cathedral. It was he who had supported and guided his nephew, and had sent him to the college founded by Paoli at Corte. In his youth Charles was wasteful and extravagant, but his wife was thrifty to meanness. With the restraint of her economy and the stimulus of his uncle, respected as head of the family, the father of Napoleon arrived at a position of some importance. He practised his profession with some diligence, became an assessor of the highest insular court, and in 1772 was made a member, later a deputy, of the council of Corsican nobles.

The sturdy mother was most prolific. Her eldest child, born in 1765, was a son who died in infancy; in 1767 was born a daughter, Maria-Anna, destined to the same fate; in 1768 a son, known later as Joseph, but baptized as Nabulione; in 1769 the great son, Napoleone. Nine other children were the fruit of the same wedlock, and six of them—three sons, Lucien, Louis, and Jerome, and three daughters, Elisa, Pauline, and Caroline—survived to share their brother's greatness. Charles himself, like his short-lived ancestors,—of whom five had died within a century,—scarcely reached middle age, dying in his thirty-ninth year. Letitia, like the stout Corsican that she was, lived to the ripe age of eighty-six in the full enjoyment of her faculties, known to the world as Madame Mère, a sobriquet devised by her great son to distinguish her as the mother of the Napoleons.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER III.

Napoleon's Birth and Childhood [1].

Birth of Nabulione or Joseph — Date of Napoleon's Birth — Coincidence with the Festival of the Assumption — The Name of Napoleon — Corsican Conditions as Influencing Napoleon's Character — His Early Education — Childish Traits — Influenced by Traditions Concerning Paoli — Family Prospects — Influence of Marbeuf — Upheavals in France — Napoleon Appointed to a Scholarship — His Efforts to Learn French at Autun — Development of His Character — His Father Delegate of the Corsican Nobility at Versailles.

1768-79.

The trials of poverty made the Buonapartes so clever and adroit that suspicions of shiftiness in small matters were developed later on, and these led to an over-close scrutiny of their acts. The opinion has not yet disappeared among reputable authorities that Nabulione and Napoleone were one and the same, born on January seventh, 1768, Joseph being really the younger, born on the date assigned to his distinguished brother. The earliest documentary evidence consists of two papers, one in the archives of the French war department, one in those of Ajaccio. The former is dated 1782, and testifies to the birth of Nabulione on January seventh, 1768, and to his baptism on January eighth; the latter is the copy, not the original, of a government contract which declares the birth, on January seventh, of Joseph Nabulion. Neither is decisive, but the addition of Joseph, with the use of the two French forms for the name in the second, with the clear intent of emphasizing his quality as a Frenchman, destroys much of its value, and leaves the weight of authority with the former. The reasonableness of the suspicion seems to be heightened by the fact that the certificate of Napoleon's marriage gives the date of his birth as February eighth, 1768. Moreover, in the marriage contract of Joseph, witnesses testify to his having been born at Ajaccio, not at Corte.

But there are facts of greater weight on the other side. In the first place, the documentary evidence is itself of equal value, for the archives of the French war department also contain an extract from the one original baptismal certificate, which is dated July twenty-first, 1771, the day of the baptism, and gives the date of Napoleone's birth as August fifteenth, 1769. Charles's application for the appointment of his two eldest boys to Brienne has also been found, and it contains, according to regulation, still another copy from the original certificate, which is dated June twenty-third, 1776, and also gives what must be accepted as the correct date. This explodes the story that Napoleon's age was falsified by his father in order to obtain admittance for him to the military school. The application was made in 1776 for both boys, so as to secure admission for each before the end of his tenth year. It was the delay of the authorities in granting the request which, after the lapse of three years or more, made Joseph ineligible. The father could have had no motive in 1776 to perpetrate a fraud, and after that date it was impossible, for the papers were not in his hands; moreover, the minister of war wrote in 1778 that the name of the elder Buonaparte boy had already been withdrawn. That charge was made during Napoleon's lifetime. His brother Joseph positively denied it, and asserted the fact as it is now substantially proved to be; Bourrienne, who had known his Emperor as a child of nine, was of like opinion; Napoleon himself, in an autograph paper still existing, and written in the handwriting of his youth, thrice gives the date of his birth as August fifteenth, 1769. If the substitution occurred, it must have been in early infancy. Besides, we know why Napoleon at marriage sought to appear older than he was, and Joseph's contract was written when the misstatement in it was valuable as making him appear thoroughly French.

Among other absurd efforts to besmirch Napoleon's character is the oft-repeated insinuation that he fixed his birthday on the greatest high festival of the Roman Church, that of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, in order to assure its perpetual celebration! In sober fact the researches of indefatigable antiquaries have brought to light not only the documentary evidence referred to, but likewise the circumstance that Napoleon, in one paper spelled Lapulion, was a not uncommon Corsican name borne by several distinguished men, and that in the early generation of the Buonaparte family the boys had been named Joseph, Napoleon, and Lucien as they followed one another into the world. In the eighteenth century spelling was scarcely more fixed than in the sixteenth. Nor in the walk of life to which the Buonapartes belonged was the fixity of names as rigid then as it later became. There were three Maria-Annas in the family first and last, one of whom was afterward called Elisa.

As to the form of the name Napoleon, there is a curious though unimportant confusion. We have already seen the forms Nabulione, Nabulion, Napoleone, Napoleon. Contemporary documents give also the form Napoloeone, and his marriage certificate uses Napolione. On the Vendôme Column stands Napolio. Imp., which might be read either Napolioni Imperatori or Napolio Imperatori. In either case we have indications of a new form, Napolion or Napolius. The latter, which was more probably intended, would seem to be an attempt to recall Neopolus, a recognized saint's name. The absence of the name Napoleon from the calendar of the Latin Church was considered a serious reproach to its bearer by those who hated him, and their incessant taunts stung him. In youth his constant retort was that there were many saints and only three hundred and sixty-five days in the year. In after years he had the matter remedied, and the French Catholics for a time celebrated a St. Napoleon's day with proper ceremonies, among which was the singing of a hymn composed to celebrate the power and virtues of the holy man for whom it was named. The irreverent school-boys of Autun and Brienne gave the nickname "straw nose"—paille-au-nez—to both the brothers. The pronunciation, therefore, was probably as uncertain as the form, Napaille-au-nez being probably a distortion of Napouilloné. The chameleon-like character of the name corresponds exactly to the chameleon-like character of the times, the man, and the lands of his birth and of his adoption. The Corsican noble and French royalist was Napoleone de Buonaparté; the Corsican republican and patriot was Napoléone Buonaparté; the French republican, Napoléon Buonaparte; the victorious general, Bonaparte; the emperor, Napoléon. There was likewise a change in this person's handwriting analogous to the change in his nationality and opinions. It was probably to conceal a most defective knowledge of French that the adoptive Frenchman, as republican, consul, and emperor, abandoned the fairly legible hand of his youth, and recurred to the atrocious one of his childhood, continuing always to use it after his definite choice of a country.

Stormy indeed were his nation and his birthtime. He himself said: "I was born while my country was dying. Thirty thousand French, vomited on our shores, drowning the throne of liberty in waves of blood—such was the horrid sight which first met my view. The cries of the dying, the groans of the oppressed, tears of despair, surrounded my cradle at my birth."

These were the words he used in 1789, while still a Corsican in feeling, when addressing Paoli. They strain chronology for the sake of rhetorical effect, but they truthfully picture the circumstances under which he was conceived. Among many others of a similar character there is a late myth which recalls in detail that when the pains of parturition seized his mother she was at mass, and that she reached her chamber just in time to deposit, on a carpet or a piece of embroidery representing the young Achilles, the prodigy bursting so impetuously into the world. By the man himself his nature was always represented as the product of his hour, and this he considered a sufficient excuse for any line of conduct he chose to follow. When in banishment at Longwood, and on his death-bed, he recalled the circumstances of his childhood in conversations with the attendant physician, a Corsican like himself. "Nothing awed me; I feared no one. I struck one, I scratched another, I was a terror to everybody. It was my brother Joseph with whom I had most to do; he was beaten, bitten, scolded, and I had put the blame on him almost before he knew what he was about; was telling tales about him almost before he could collect his wits. I had to be quick: my mama Letizia would have restrained my warlike temper; she would not have put up with my defiant petulance. Her tenderness was severe, meting out punishment and reward with equal justice; merit and demerit, she took both into account."

Of his earliest education he said at the same time: "Like everything else in Corsica, it was pitiful." Lucien Buonaparte, his great-uncle, was a canon, a man of substance with an income of five thousand livres a year, and of some education—sufficient, at least, to permit his further ecclesiastical advancement. "Uncle" Fesch, whose father had received the good education of a Protestant Swiss boy, and had in turn imparted his knowledge to his own son, was the friend and older playmate of the turbulent little Buonaparte. The child learned a few notions of Bible history, and, doubtless, also the catechism, from the canon; by his eleven-year-old uncle he was taught his alphabet. In his sixth year he was sent to a dame's school. The boys teased him because his stockings were always down over his shoes, and for his devotion to the girls, one named Giacominetta especially. He met their taunts with blows, using sticks, bricks, or any handy weapon.

According to his own story, he was fearless in the face of superior numbers, however large. His mother, according to his brother Joseph, declared that he was a perfect imp of a child. She herself described him as fond of playing at war with a drum, wooden sword, and files of toy soldiers. The pious nuns who taught him recognized a certain gift for figures in styling him their little mathematician. Later when in attendance at the Jesuit school he regularly encountered on his way thither a soldier with whom he exchanged his own piece of white bread for a morsel of the other's coarse commissary loaf. The excuse he gave, according to his mother, was that he must learn to like such food if he were to be a soldier. In time his passion for the simple mathematics he studied increased to such a degree that she assigned him a rough shed in the rear of their home as a refuge from the disturbing noise of the family. For exercise he walked the streets at nightfall with tumbled hair and disordered clothes. Of French he knew not a word; he had lessons at school in his mother tongue, which he learned to read under the instruction of the Abbé Recco. The worthy teacher arrayed his boys in two bodies: the diligent under the victorious standard of Rome, the idle as vanquished Carthaginians. Napoleon of right belonged to the latter, but he was transferred, not because of merit, by the sheer force of his imperious temper.

This scanty information is all the trustworthy knowledge we possess concerning the little Napoleon up to his tenth year. With slight additions from other sources it is substantially the great Napoleon's own account of himself by the mouthpiece partly of his mother in his prosperous days, partly of Antommarchi in that last period of self-examination when, to him, as to other men, consistency seems the highest virtue. He was, doubtless, striving to compound with his conscience by emphasizing the adage that the child is father to the man—that he was born what he had always been.

In 1775, Corsica had been for six years in the possession of France, and on the surface all was fair. There was, however, a little remnant of faithful patriots left in the island, with whom Paoli and his banished friends were still in communication. The royal cabinet, seeking to remove every possible danger of disturbance, even so slight a one as lay in the disaffection of the few scattered nationalists, and in the unconcealed distrust which these felt for their conforming fellow-citizens, began a little later to make advances, in order, if possible, to win at least Paoli's neutrality, if not his acquiescence. All in vain: the exile was not to be moved. From time to time, therefore, there was throughout Corsica a noticeable flow in the tide of patriotism. There are indications that the child Napoleon was conscious of this influence, listening probably with intense interest to the sympathetic tales about Paoli and his struggles for liberty which were still told among the people.

As to Charles de Buonaparte, some things he had hoped for from annexation were secured. His nobility and official rank were safe; he was in a fair way to reach even higher distinction. But what were honors without wealth? The domestic means were constantly growing smaller, while expenditures increased with the accumulating dignities and ever-growing family. He had made his humble submission to the French; his reception had been warm and graceful. The authorities knew of his pretensions to the estates of his ancestors. The Jesuits had been disgraced and banished, but the much litigated Odone property had not been restored to him; on the contrary, the buildings had been converted into school-houses, and the revenues turned into various channels. Years had passed, and it was evident that his suit was hopeless. How could substantial advantage be secured from the King?

His friends, General Marbeuf in particular, were of the opinion that he could profit to a certain extent at least by securing for his children an education at the expense of the state. While it is likely that from the first Joseph was destined for the priesthood, yet there was provision for ecclesiastical training under royal patronage as well as for secular, and a transfer from the latter to the former was easier than the reverse. Both were to be placed at the college of Autun for a preliminary course, whatever their eventual destination might be. The necessary steps were soon taken, and in 1776 the formal supplication for the two eldest boys was forwarded to Paris. Immediately the proof of four noble descents was demanded. The movement of letters was slow, that of officials even slower, and the delays in securing copies and authentications of the various documents were long and vexatious.

Meantime Choiseul had been disgraced, and on May tenth, 1774, the old King had died; Louis XVI now reigned. The inertia which marked the brilliant decadence of the Bourbon monarchy was finally overcome. The new social forces were partly emancipated. Facts were examined, and their significance considered. Bankruptcy was no longer a threatening phantom, but a menacing reality of the most serious nature. Retrenchment and reform were the order of the day. Necker was trying his promising schemes. There was, among them, one for a body consisting of delegates from each of the three estates,—nobles, ecclesiastics, and burgesses,—to assist in deciding that troublesome question, the regulation of imposts. The Swiss financier hoped to destroy in this way the sullen, defiant influence of the royal intendants. In Corsica the governor and the intendant both thought themselves too shrewd to be trapped, and secured the appointment from each of the Corsican estates of men who were believed by them to be their humble servants. The needy suitor, Charles de Buonaparte, was to be the delegate at Versailles of the nobility. They thought they knew this man in particular, but he was to prove as malleable in France as he had been in Corsica.

Though nearly penniless, the noble deputy, with the vanity of the born courtier, was flattered, and accepted the mission, setting out on December fifteenth, 1778, by way of Italy with his two sons Joseph and Napoleon. With them were Joseph Fesch, appointed to the seminary at Aix, and Varesa, Letitia's cousin, who was to be sub-deacon at Autun. Joseph and Napoleon both asserted in later life that during their sojourn in Florence the grand duke gave his friend, their father, a letter to his royal sister, Marie Antoinette. As the grand duke was at that time in Vienna, the whole account they give of the journey is probably, though perhaps not intentionally, untrue. It was not to the Queen's intercession but to Marbeuf's powerful influence that the final partial success of Charles de Buonaparte's supplication was due. This is clearly proven by the evidence of the archives. To the general's nephew, bishop of Autun, Joseph, now too old to be received in a royal military school, and later Lucien, were both sent, the former to be educated as a priest. It was probably Marbeuf's influence also, combined with a desire to conciliate Corsica, which caused the herald's office finally to accept the documents attesting the Buonapartes' nobility.

It appears that the journey from Corsica through Florence and Marseilles had already wrought a marvelous change in the boy. Napoleon's teacher at Autun, the Abbé Chardon, described his pupil as having brought with him a sober, thoughtful character. He played with no one, and took his walks alone. In all respects he excelled his brother Joseph. The boys of Autun, says the same authority, on one occasion brought the sweeping charge of cowardice against all inhabitants of Corsica, in order to exasperate him. "If they [the French] had been but four to one," was the calm, phlegmatic answer of the ten-year-old boy, "they would never have taken Corsica; but when they were ten to one...." "But you had a fine general—Paoli," interrupted the narrator. "Yes, sir," was the reply, uttered with an air of discontent, and in the very embodiment of ambition; "I should much like to emulate him." The description of the untamed faun as he then appeared is not flattering: his complexion sallow, his hair stiff, his figure slight, his expression lusterless, his manner insignificant. Moreover, his behavior was sullen, and at first, of course, he spoke broken French with an Italian accent. Open-mouthed and with sparkling eyes, however, he listened attentively to the first rehearsal of his task; repetition he heartily disliked, and when rebuked for inattention he coldly replied: "Sir, I know that already." On April twenty-first, 1779, Napoleon, according to the evidence of his personal memorandum, left Autun, having been admitted to Brienne, and it was to Marbeuf that in later life he correctly attributed his appointment. After spending three weeks with a school friend, the little fellow entered upon his duties about the middle of May.

On New Year's day, 1779, the Buonapartes had arrived at Autun, and for nearly four months the young Napoleone had been trained in the use of French. He learned to speak fluently, though not correctly, and wrote short themes in a way to satisfy his teacher. Prodigy as he was later declared to have been, his real progress was slow, the difficulties of that elegant and polished tongue having scarcely been reached; so that it was with a most imperfect knowledge of their language, and a sadly defective pronunciation, that he made his appearance among his future schoolmates. Having, we may suppose, been assigned to the first vacancy that occurred in any of the royal colleges, his first destination had been Tiron, the roughest and most remote of the twelve. But as fortune would have it, a change was somehow made to Brienne. That establishment was rude enough. The instructors were Minim priests, and the life was as severe as it could be made with such a clientage under half-educated and inexperienced monks. In spite of all efforts to the contrary, however, the place had an air of elegance; there was a certain school-boy display proportionate to the means and to the good or bad breeding of the young nobles, also a very keen discrimination among themselves as to rank, social quality, and relative importance. Those familiar with the ruthlessness of boys in their treatment of one another can easily conceive what was the reception of the newcomer, whose nobility was unknown and unrecognized in France, and whose means were of the scantiest.

During his son's preparatory studies the father had been busy at Versailles with further supplications—among them one for a supplement from the royal purse to his scanty pay as delegate, and another for the speedy settlement of his now notorious claim. The former of the two was granted not merely to M. de Buonaparte, but to his two colleagues, in view of the "excellent behavior"—otherwise subserviency—of the Corsican delegation at Versailles. When, in addition, the certificate of Napoleon's appointment finally arrived, and the father set out to place his son at school, with a barely proper outfit, he had no difficulty in securing sufficient money to meet his immediate and pressing necessities.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER IV.

Napoleon's School-days [2].

Military Schools in France — Napoleon's Initiation into the Life of Brienne — Regulations of the School — The Course of Study — Napoleon's Powerful Friends — His Reading and Other Avocations — His Comrades — His Studies — His Precocity — His Conduct and Scholarship — The Change in His Life Plan — His Influence in His Family — His Choice of the Artillery Service.

1779-84.

It was an old charge that the sons of poor gentlemen destined to be artillery officers were bred like princes. The institution at Brienne, with eleven other similar academies, had been but recently founded as a protest against the luxury which had reigned in the military schools at Paris and La Flèche. Both these had been closed for a time because they could not be reformed; the latter was, however, one of the twelve from the first, and that at Paris was afterward reopened as a finishing-school. The monasteries of various religious orders were chosen as seats of the new colleges, and their owners were put in charge with instructions to secure simplicity of life and manners, the formation of character, and other desirable benefits, each one in its own way in the school or schools intrusted to it. The result so far had been a failure; there were simply not twelve first-rate instructors in each branch to be found in France for the new positions; the instruction was therefore limited and poor, so that in the intellectual stagnation the right standards of conduct declined, while the old notions of hollow courtliness and conventional behavior flourished as never before. In order to enter his boy at Brienne, Charles de Buonaparte presented a certificate signed by the intendant and two neighbors, that he could not educate his sons without help from the King, and was a poor man, having no income except his salary as assessor. This paper was countersigned by Marbeuf as commanding general, and to him the request was formally granted. This being the regular procedure, it is evident that all the young nobles of the twelve schools enjoying the royal bounty were poor and should have had little or no pocket money. Perhaps for this very reason, though the school provided for every expense including pocket money, polished manners and funds obtained surreptitiously from powerful friends indifferent to rules, were the things most needed to secure kind treatment for an entering boy. These were exactly what the young gentleman scholar from Corsica did not possess. The ignorant and unworldly Minim fathers could neither foresee nor, if they had foreseen, alleviate the miseries incident to his arrival under such conditions.

At Autun Napoleon had at least enjoyed the sympathetic society of his mild and emotional brother, whose easy-going nature could smooth many a rough place. He was now entirely without companionship, resenting from the outset both the ill-natured attacks and the playful personal allusions through which boys so often begin, and with time knit ever more firmly, their inexplicable friendships. To the taunts about Corsica which began immediately he answered coldly, "I hope one day to be in a position to give Corsica her liberty." Entering on a certain occasion a room in which unknown to him there hung a portrait of the hated Choiseul, he started back as he caught sight of it and burst into bitter revilings; for this he was compelled to undergo chastisement.

Brienne was a nursery for the qualities first developed at Autun. The building was a gloomy and massive structure of the early eighteenth century, which stood on a commanding site at the entrance of the town, flanked by a later addition somewhat more commodious. The dormitory consisted of two long rows of cells opening on a double corridor, about a hundred and forty in all: each of these chambers was six feet square, and contained a folding bed, a pitcher and a basin. The pupil was locked in at bed-time, his only means of communication being a bell to arouse the guard who slept in the hall. Larger rooms were provided for his toilet; and he studied where he recited, in still another suite. There was a common refectory in which four simple meals a day were served: for breakfast and luncheon, bread and water, with fruit either fresh or stewed; for dinner, soup with the soup-meat, a side-dish and dessert; for supper, a joint with salad or dessert. With the last two was served a mild mixture of wine and water, known in school slang as "abundance." The outfit of clothing comprised underwear for two changes a week, a uniform consisting of a blue cloth coat, faced and trimmed with red, a waistcoat of the same with white revers, and serge breeches either blue or black. The overcoat was of the same material as the uniform, with the same trimming but with white lining. The studies comprised Latin, mathematics, the French language and literature, English, German, geography, drawing, fencing, music, vocal as well as instrumental, and dancing.

In the Museum of Versailles.

Marie-Laetitia Ramolino Bonaparte
"Madame Mère"—mother Of Napoleon I.

Perhaps the severe regimen of living could have been mitigated and brightened by a course of study nominally and ostensibly so rich and full; but in the list of masters, lay and clerical, there is not a name of eminence. Neither Napoleon nor his contemporary pupils recalled in later years any portion of their work as stimulating, nor any instructor as having excelled in ability. The boys seem to have disliked heartily both their studies and their masters. Young Buonaparte had likewise a distaste for society and was thrown upon his own unaided resources to satisfy his eager mind. Undisciplined in spirit, he was impatient of self-discipline and worked spasmodically in such subjects as he liked, disdaining the severe training of his mind, even by himself. He did learn to spell the foreign tongue of his adopted country, but his handwriting, never good, was bad or worse, according to circumstances. Dark, solitary, and untamed, the new scholar assumed the indifference of wounded vanity, despised all pastimes, and found delight either in books or in scornful exasperation of his comrades when compelled to associate with them. There were quarrels and bitter fights, in which the Ishmaelite's hand was against every other. Sometimes in a kind of frenzy he inflicted serious wounds on his fellow-students. At length even the teachers mocked him, and deprived him of his position as captain in the school battalion.

The climax of the miserable business was reached when to a taunt that his ancestry was nothing, "his father a wretched tipstaff," Napoleon replied by challenging his tormentor to fight a duel. For this offense he was put in confinement while the instigator went unpunished. It was by the intervention of Marbeuf that his young friend was at length released. Bruised and wounded in spirit, the boy would gladly have shaken the dust of Brienne from his feet, but necessity forbade. Either from some direct communication Napoleon had with his protector, or through a dramatic but unauthenticated letter purporting to have been written by him to his friends in Corsica and still in existence, Marbeuf learned that the chiefest cause of all the bitterness was the inequality between the pocket allowances of the young French nobles and that of the young Corsican. The kindly general displayed the liberality of a family friend, and gladly increased the boy's gratuity, administering at the same time a smart rebuke to him for his readiness to take offense. He is likewise thought to have introduced his young charge to Mme. Loménie de Brienne, whose mansion was near by.[3] This noble woman, it is asserted, became a second mother to the lonely child: though there were no vacations, yet long holidays were numerous and these were passed with her; her tenderness softened his rude nature, the more so as she knew the value of tips to a school-boy, and administered them liberally though judiciously.

Nor was this, if true, the only light among the shadows in the picture of his later Brienne school-days. Each of the hundred and fifty pupils had a small garden spot assigned to him. Buonaparte developed a passion for his own, and, annexing by force the neglected plots of his two neighbors, created for himself a retreat, the solitude of which was insured by a thick and lofty hedge planted about it. To this citadel, the sanctity of which he protected with a fury at times half insane, he was wont to retire in the fair weather of all seasons, with whatever books he could procure. In the companionship of these he passed happy, pleasant, and fruitful hours. His youthful patriotism had been intensified by the hatred he now felt for French school-boys, and through them for France. "I can never forgive my father," he once cried, "for the share he had in uniting Corsica to France." Paoli became his hero, and the favorite subjects of his reading were the mighty deeds of men and peoples, especially in antiquity. Such matter he found abundant in Plutarch's "Lives."

Moreover, his punishments and degradation by the school authorities at once created a sentiment in his favor among his companions, which not only counteracted the effect of official penalties, but gave him a sort of compensating leadership in their games. When driven by storms to abandon his garden haunt, and to associate in the public hall with the other boys, he often instituted sports in which opposing camps of Greeks and Persians, or of Romans and Carthaginians, fought until the uproar brought down the authorities to end the conflict. On one occasion he proposed the game, common enough elsewhere, but not so familiar then in France, of building snow forts, of storming and defending them, and of fighting with snowballs as weapons. The proposition was accepted, and the preparations were made under his direction with scientific zeal; the intrenchments, forts, bastions, and redoubts were the admiration of the neighborhood. For weeks the mimic warfare went on, Buonaparte, always in command, being sometimes the besieger and as often the besieged. Such was the aptitude, such the resources, and such the commanding power which he showed in either rôle, that the winter was always remembered in the annals of the school.

Of all his contemporaries only two became men of mark, Gudin and Nansouty. Both were capable soldiers, receiving promotions and titles at Napoleon's hand during the empire. Bourrienne, having sunk to the lowest depths under the republic, found employment as secretary of General Bonaparte. In this position he continued until the consulate, when he lost both fortune and reputation in doubtful money speculations. From old affection he secured pardon and further employment, being sent as minister to Hamburg. There his lust for money wrought his final ruin. The treacherous memoirs which appeared over his name are a compilation edited by him to obtain the means of livelihood in his declining years. Throughout life Napoleon had the kindliest feelings for Brienne and all connected with it. In his death struggle on the battle-fields of Champagne he showed favor to the town and left it a large legacy in his will. No schoolmate or master appealed to him in vain, and many of his comrades were in their insignificant lives dependent for existence on his favor.

It is a trite remark that diamonds can be polished only by diamond dust. Whatever the rude processes were to which the rude nature of the young Corsican was subjected, the result was remarkable. Latin he disliked, and treated with disdainful neglect. His particular aptitudes were for mathematics, for geography, and above all for history, in which he made fair progress. His knowledge of mathematics was never profound; in geography he displayed a remarkable and excellent memory; biography was the department of history which fascinated him. In all directions, however, he was quick in his perceptions; the rapid maturing of his mind by reading and reflection was evident to all his associates, hostile though they were. The most convincing evidence of the fact will be found in a letter written, probably in July, 1784, when he was fifteen years old, to an uncle,—possibly Fesch, more likely Paravicini,—concerning family matters.[4] His brother Joseph had gone to Autun to be educated for the Church, his sister (Maria-Anna) Elisa had been appointed on the royal foundation at Saint-Cyr, and Lucien was, if possible, to be placed like Napoleon at Brienne. The two younger children had already accompanied their father on his regular journey to Versailles, and Lucien was now installed either in the school itself or near by, to be in readiness for any vacancy. All was well with the rest, except that Joseph was uneasy, and wished to become an officer too.

The tone of Napoleon is extraordinary. Opening with a commonplace little sketch of Lucien such as any elder brother might draw of a younger, he proceeds to an analysis of Joseph which is remarkable. Searching and thorough, it explains with fullness of reasoning and illustration how much more advantageous from the worldly point of view both for Joseph and for the family would be a career in the Church: "the bishop of Autun would bestow a fat living on him, and he was himself sure of becoming a bishop." As an obiter dictum it contains a curious expression of contempt for infantry as an arm, the origin of which feeling is by no means clear. Joseph wishes to be a soldier: very well, but in what branch of the profession? He could not enter the navy, for he knows no mathematics; nor is his doubtful health suited to that career. He would have to study two years more for the navy, and four if he were to be an engineer; however, the ceaseless occupation of this arm of the service would be more than his strength could endure. Similar reasons militate against the artillery. There remains, therefore, only the infantry. "Good. I see. He wants to be all day idle, he wants to march the streets all day, and besides, what is a slim infantry office? A poor thing, three quarters of the time; and that, neither my dear father nor you, nor my mother, nor my dear uncle the archdeacon, desires, for he has already shown some slight tendency to folly and extravagance." There is an utter absence of loose talk, or of enthusiasm, and no allusion to principle or sentiment. It is the work of a cold, calculating, and dictatorial nature. There is a poetical quotation in it, very apt, but very badly spelled; and while the expression throughout is fair, it is by no means what might be expected from a person capable of such thought, who had been studying French for three years, and using it exclusively in daily life.

In August, 1783, Buonaparte and Bourrienne, according to the statement of the latter, shared the first prize in mathematics, and soon afterward, in the same year, a royal inspector, M. de Keralio, arrived at Brienne to test the progress of the King's wards. He took a great fancy to the little Buonaparte, and declaring that, though unacquainted with his family, he found a spark in him which must not be extinguished, wrote an emphatic recommendation of the lad, couched in the following terms: "M. de Bonaparte (Napoleon), born August fifteenth, 1769. Height, four feet ten inches ten lines [about five feet three inches, English]. Constitution: excellent health, docile disposition, mild, straightforward, thoughtful. Conduct most satisfactory; has always been distinguished for his application in mathematics. He is fairly well acquainted with history and geography. He is weak in all accomplishments—drawing, dancing, music, and the like. This boy would make an excellent sailor; deserves to be admitted to the school in Paris." Unfortunately for the prospect, M. de Keralio, who might have been a powerful friend, died almost immediately.

By means of further genuflections, supplications, and wearisome persistency, Charles de Buonaparte at last obtained favor not only for Lucien, but for Joseph also. Deprived unjustly of his inheritance, deprived also of his comforts and his home in pursuit of the ambitious schemes rendered necessary by that wrong, the poor diplomatist was now near the end of his resources and his energy. Except for the short visit of his father at Brienne on his way to Paris, it is almost certain that the young Napoleon saw none of his elders throughout his sojourn in the former place. The event was most important to the boy and opened the pent-up flood of his tenderness: it was therefore a bitter disappointment when he learned that, having seen the royal physician, his parent would return to Corsica by Autun, taking Joseph with him, and would not stop at Brienne. Napoleon, by the advice of Marbeuf and more definitely by the support of his friend the inspector, had been designated for the navy; through the favor of the latter he hoped to have been sent to Paris, and thence assigned to Toulon, the naval port in closest connection with Corsica. There were so many influential applications, however, for that favorite branch of the service that the department must rid itself of as many as possible; a youth without a patron would be the first to suffer. The agreement which the father had made at Paris was, therefore, that Napoleon, by way of compensation, might continue at Brienne, while Joseph could either go thither, or to Metz, in order to make up his deficiencies in the mathematical sciences and pass his examinations to enter the royal service along with Napoleon, on condition that the latter would renounce his plans for the navy, and choose a career in the army.

The letter in which the boy communicates his decision to his father is as remarkable as the one just mentioned and very clearly the sequel to it. The anxious and industrious parent had finally broken down, and in his feeble health had taken Joseph as a support and help on the arduous homeward journey. With the same succinct, unsparing statement as before, Napoleon confesses his disappointment, and in commanding phrase, with logical analysis, lays down the reasons why Joseph must come to Brienne instead of going to Metz. There is, however, a new element in the composition—a frank, hearty expression of affection for his family, and a message of kindly remembrance to his friends. But the most striking fact, in view of subsequent developments, is a request for Boswell's "History of Corsica," and any other histories or memoirs relating to "that kingdom." "I will bring them back when I return, if it be six years from now."[5] The immediate sequel makes clear the direction of his mind. He probably did not remember that he was preparing, if possible, to strip France of her latest and highly cherished acquisition at her own cost, or if he did, he must have felt like the archer pluming his arrow from the off-cast feathers of his victim's wing. It is plain that his humiliations at school, his studies in the story of liberty, his inherited bent, and the present disappointment, were all cumulative in the result of fixing his attention on his native land as the destined sphere of his activity.

Four days after the probable date of writing he passed his examination a second time, before the new inspector, announced his choice of the artillery as his branch of the service, and a month later was ordered to the military academy in Paris. This institution had not merely been restored to its former renown: it now enjoyed a special reputation as the place of reward to which only the foremost candidates for official honors were sent. The choice of artillery seems to have been reached by a simple process of exclusion; the infantry was too unintellectual and indolent, the cavalry too expensive and aristocratic; between the engineers and the artillery there was little to choose—in neither did wealth or influence control promotion. The decision seems to have fallen as it did because the artillery was accidentally mentioned first in the fatal letter he had received announcing the family straits, and the necessary renunciation of the navy. On the certificate which was sent up with Napoleon from Brienne was the note: "Character masterful, imperious, and headstrong."[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER V.

In Paris and Valence [6].

Introduction to Paris — Teachers and Comrades — Death of Charles de Buonaparte — His Merits — The School at Paris — Napoleon's Poverty — His Character at the Close of His School Years — Appointed Lieutenant in the Regiment of La Fère — Demoralization of the French Army — The Men in the Ranks — Napoleon as a Beau — Return to Study — His Profession and Vocation.

1784-86.

It was on October thirtieth, 1784 that Napoleon left Brienne for Paris.[7] He was in the sixteenth year of his age, entirely ignorant of what were then called the "humanities," but fairly versed in history, geography, and the mathematical sciences. His knowledge, like the bent of his mind, was practical rather than theoretical, and he knew more about fortification and sieges than about metaphysical abstractions; more about the deeds of history than about its philosophy. The new surroundings into which he was introduced by the Minim father who had accompanied him and his four comrades from Brienne, all somewhat younger than himself, were different indeed from those of the rude convent he had left behind. The splendid palace constructed on the plans of Gabriel early in the eighteenth century still stands to attest the King's design of lodging his gentlemen cadets in a style worthy of their high birth, and of educating them in manners as well as of instructing them. The domestic arrangements had been on a par with the regal lodgings of the corps. So far had matters gone in the direction of elegance and luxury that as we have said the establishment was closed. But it had been reopened within a few months, about the end of 1777. While the worst abuses had been corrected, yet still the food was, in quantity at least, lavish; there were provided two uniforms complete each year, with underwear sufficient for two changes a week, what was then considered a great luxury; there was a great staff of liveried servants, and the officers in charge were men of polished manners and of the highest distinction. At the very close of his life Napoleon recalled the arrangements as made for men of wealth. "We were fed and served splendidly, treated altogether like officers, enjoying a greater competence than most of our families, greater than most of us were destined to enjoy." At sixteen and with his inexperience he was perhaps an incompetent judge. Others, Vaublanc for example, thought there was more show than substance.

Be that as it may, Bonaparte's defiant scorn and habits of solitary study grew stronger together. It is asserted that his humor found vent in a preposterous and peevish memorial addressed to the minister of war on the proper training of the pupils in French military schools! He may have written it, but it is almost impossible that it should ever have passed beyond the walls of the school, even, as is claimed, for revision by a former teacher, Berton. Nevertheless he found almost, if not altogether, for the first time a real friend in the person of des Mazis, a youth noble by birth and nature, who was assigned to him as a pupil-teacher, and was moreover a foundation scholar like himself. It is also declared by various authorities that from time to time he enjoyed the agreeable society of the bishop of Autun, who was now at Versailles, of his sister Elisa at Saint-Cyr, and, toward the very close, of a family friend who had just settled in Paris, the beautiful Mme. Permon, mother of the future duchess of Abrantès. Although born in Corsica, she belonged to a branch of the noble Greek family of the Comneni. In view of the stringent regulations both of the military school and of Saint-Cyr, these visits are problematical, though not impossible.

Rigid as were the regulations of the royal establishments, their enforcement depended of course on the character of their directors. The marquis who presided over the military school was a veteran place-holder, his assistant was a man of no force, and the director of studies was the only conscientious official of the three. He knew his charge thoroughly and was recognized by Napoleon in later years as a man of worth. The course of studies was a continuation of that at Brienne, and there were twenty-one instructors in the various branches of mathematics, history, geography, and languages. De l'Esguille endorsed one of Buonaparte's exercises in history with the remark: "Corsican by nation and character. He will go far if circumstances favor." Domairon said of his French style that it was "granite heated in a volcano." There were admirable masters, seven in number, for riding, fencing, and dancing. In none of these exercises did Buonaparte excel. It was the avowed purpose of the institution to make its pupils pious Roman Catholics. The parish priest at Brienne had administered the sacraments to a number of the boys, including the young Corsican, who appears to have submitted without cavil to the severe religious training of the Paris school: chapel with mass at half-past six in the morning, grace before and after all meals, and chapel again a quarter before nine in the evening; on holidays, catechism for new students; Sundays, catechism and high mass, and vespers with confession every Saturday; communion every two months. Long afterwards the Emperor remembered de Juigné, his chaplain, with kindness and overwhelmed him with favors. Of the hundred and thirty-two scholars resident during Buonaparte's time, eighty-three were boarders at four hundred dollars each; none of these attained distinction, the majority did not even pass their examinations. The rest were scholars of the King, and were diligent; but even of these only one or two were really able men.

It was in the city of Mme. Permon's residence, at Montpellier, that on the twenty-fourth of February, 1785, Charles de Buonaparte died. This was apparently a final and mortal blow to the Buonaparte fortunes, for it seemed as if with the father must go all the family expectations. The circumstances were a fit close to the life thus ended. Feeling his health somewhat restored, and despairing of further progress in the settlement of his well-worn claim by legal methods, he had determined on still another journey of solicitation to Versailles. With Joseph as a companion he started; but a serious relapse occurred at sea, and ashore the painful disease continued to make such ravages that the father and son set out for Montpellier to consult the famous specialists of the medical faculty at that place. It was in vain, and, after some weeks, on February twenty-fourth the heartbroken father breathed his last. Having learned to hate the Jesuits, he had become indifferent to all religion, and is said by some to have repelled with his last exertions the kindly services of Fesch, who was now a frocked priest, and had hastened to his brother-in-law's bedside to offer the final consolations of the Church to a dying man. Others declare that he turned again to the solace of religion, and was attended on his death-bed by the Abbé Coustou. Joseph, prostrated by grief, was taken into Mme. Permon's house and received the tenderest consolation.[8]

Failure as the ambitious father had been, he had nevertheless been so far the support of his family in their hopes of advancement. Sycophant and schemer as he had become, they recognized his untiring energy in their behalf, and truly loved him. He left them penniless and in debt, but he died in their service, and they sincerely mourned for him. On the twenty-third of March the sorrowing boy wrote to his great-uncle, the archdeacon Lucien, a letter in eulogy of his father and begging the support of his uncle as guardian. This appointment was legally made not long after. On the twenty-eighth he wrote to his mother. Both these letters are in existence, and sound like rhetorical school exercises corrected by a tutor. That to his mother is, however, dignified and affectionate, referring in a becoming spirit to the support her children owed her. As if to show what a thorough child he still was, the dreary little note closes with an odd postscript giving the irrelevant news of the birth, two days earlier, of a royal prince—the duke of Normandy! This may have been added for the benefit of the censor who examined all the correspondence of the young men.

Some time before, General Marbeuf had married, and the pecuniary supplies to his boy friend seem after that event to have stopped. Mme. de Buonaparte was left with four infant children, the youngest, Jerome, but three months old. Their great-uncle, Lucien, the archdeacon, was kind, and Joseph, abandoning all his ambitions, returned to be, if possible, the support of the family. Napoleon's poverty was no longer relative or imaginary, but real and hard. Drawing more closely than ever within himself, he became a still more ardent reader and student, devoting himself with passionate industry to examining the works of Rousseau, the poison of whose political doctrines instilled itself with fiery and grateful stinging into the thin, cold blood of the unhappy cadet. In many respects the instruction he received was admirable, and there is a traditional anecdote that he was the best mathematician in the school. But on the whole he profited little by the short continuation of his studies at Paris. The marvelous French style which he finally created for himself is certainly unacademic in the highest degree; in the many courses of modern languages he mastered neither German nor English, in fact he never had more than a few words of either; his attainments in fencing and horsemanship were very slender. Among all his comrades he made but one friend, while two of them became in later life his embittered foes. Phélipeaux thwarted him at Acre; Picot de Peccaduc became Schwarzenberg's most trusted adviser in the successful campaigns of Austria against France.

Whether to alleviate as soon as possible the miseries of his destitution, or, as has been charged, to be rid of their querulous and exasperating inmate, the authorities of the military school shortened Buonaparte's stay to the utmost of their ability, and admitted him to examination in August, 1785, less than a year from his admission.[9] He passed with no distinction, being forty-second in rank, but above his friend des Mazis, who was fifty-sixth. His appointment, therefore, was due to an entire absence of rivalry, the young nobility having no predilection for the arduous duties of service in the artillery. He was eligible merely because he had passed the legal age, and had given evidence of sufficient acquisitions. In an oft-quoted description,[10] purporting to be an official certificate given to the young officer on leaving, he is characterized as reserved and industrious, preferring study to any kind of amusement, delighting in good authors, diligent in the abstract sciences, caring little for the others,[11] thoroughly trained in mathematics and geography; quiet, fond of solitude, capricious, haughty, extremely inclined to egotism, speaking little, energetic in his replies, prompt and severe in repartee; having much self-esteem; ambitious and aspiring to any height: "the youth is worthy of protection." There is, unfortunately, no documentary evidence to sustain the genuineness of this report; but whatever its origin, it is so nearly contemporary that it probably contains some truth.

The two friends had both asked for appointments in a regiment stationed at Valence, known by the style of La Fère. Des Mazis had a brother in it; the ardent young Corsican would be nearer his native land, and might, perhaps, be detached for service in his home. They were both nominated in September, but the appointment was not made until the close of October. Buonaparte was reduced to utter penury by the long delay, his only resource being the two hundred livres provided by the funds of the school for each of its pupils until they reached the grade of captain. It was probably, and according to the generally received account, at his comrade's expense, and in his company, that he traveled. Their slender funds were exhausted by boyish dissipation at Lyons, and they measured on foot the long leagues thence to their destination, arriving at Valence early in November.

The growth of absolutism in Europe had been due at the outset to the employment of standing armies by the kings, and the consequent alliance between the crown, which was the paymaster, and the people, who furnished the soldiery. There was constant conflict between the crown and the nobility concerning privilege, constant friction between the nobility and the people in the survivals of feudal relation. This sturdy and wholesome contention among the three estates ended at last in the victory of the kings. In time, therefore, the army became no longer a mere support to the monarchy, but a portion of its moral organism, sharing its virtues and its vices, its weakness and its strength, reflecting, as in a mirror, the true condition of the state so far as it was personified in the king. The French army, in the year 1785, was in a sorry plight. With the consolidation of classes in an old monarchical society, it had come to pass that, under the prevailing voluntary system, none but men of the lowest social stratum would enlist. Barracks and camps became schools of vice. "Is there," exclaimed one who at a later day was active in the work of army reform—"is there a father who does not shudder when abandoning his son, not to the chances of war, but to the associations of a crowd of scoundrels a thousand times more dangerous?"

We have already had a glimpse of the character of the officers. Their first thought was social position and pleasure, duty and the practice of their profession being considerations of almost vanishing importance. Things were quite as bad in the central administration. Neither the organization nor the equipment nor the commissariat was in condition to insure accuracy or promptness in the working of the machine. The regiment of La Fère was but a sample of the whole. "Dancing three times a week," says the advertisement for recruits, "rackets twice, and the rest of the time skittles, prisoners' base, and drill. Pleasures reign, every man has the highest pay, and all are well treated." Buonaparte's income, comprising his pay of eight hundred, his provincial allowance of a hundred and twenty, and the school pension of two hundred, amounted, all told, to eleven hundred and twenty livres a year; his necessary expenses for board and lodging were seven hundred and twenty, leaving less than thirty-five livres a month, about seven dollars, for clothes and pocket money. Fifteen years as lieutenant, fifteen as captain, and, for the rest of his life, half pay with a decoration—such was the summary of the prospect before the ordinary commonplace officer in a like situation. Meantime he was comfortably lodged with a kindly old soul, a sometime tavern-keeper named Bou, whose daughter, "of a certain age," gave a mother's care to the young lodger. In his weary years of exile the Emperor recalled his service at Valence as invaluable. The artillery regiment of La Fère he said was unsurpassed in personnel and training; though the officers were too old for efficiency, they were loyal and fatherly; the youngsters exercised their witty sarcasm on many, but they loved them all.

During the first months of his garrison service Buonaparte, as an apprentice, saw arduous service in matters of detail, but he threw off entirely the darkness and reserve of his character, taking a full draught from the brimming cup of pleasure. On January tenth, 1786, he was finally received to full standing as lieutenant. The novelty, the absence of restraint, the comparative emancipation from the arrogance and slights to which he had hitherto been subject, good news from the family in Corsica, whose hopes as to the inheritance were once more high—all these elements combined to intoxicate for a time the boy of sixteen. The strongest will cannot forever repress the exuberance of budding manhood. There were balls, and with them the first experience of gallantry. The young officer even took dancing-lessons. Moreover, in the drawing-rooms of the Abbé Saint-Ruf and of his friends, for the first time he saw the manners and heard the talk of refined society—provincial, to be sure, but excellent. It was to the special favor of Monseigneur de Marbeuf, the bishop of Autun, that he owed his warm reception. The acquaintances there made were with persons of local consequence, who in later years reaped a rich harvest for their condescension to the young stranger. In two excellent households he was a welcome and intimate guest, that of Lauberie and Colombier. There were daughters in both. His acquaintance with Mlle. de Lauberie was that of one who respected her character and appreciated her beauty. In 1805 she was appointed lady in waiting to the Empress, but declined the appointment because of her duties as wife and mother. In the intimacy with Mlle. du Colombier there was more coquetry. She was a year the senior and lived on her mother's estate some miles from the town. Rousseau had made fashionable long walks and life in the open. The frequent visits of Napoleon to Caroline were marked by youthful gaiety and budding love. They spent many innocent hours in the fields and garden of the château and parted with regret. Their friendship lasted even after she became Mme. de Bressieux, and they corresponded intimately for long years. Of his fellow-officers he saw but little, though he ate regularly at the table of the "Three Pigeons" where the lieutenants had their mess. This was not because they were distant, but because he had no genius for good-fellowship, and the habit of indifference to his comrades had grown strong upon him.

The period of pleasure was not long. It is impossible to judge whether the little self-indulgence was a weak relapse from an iron purpose or part of a definite plan. The former is more likely, so abrupt and apparently conscience-stricken was the return to labor. His inclinations and his earnest hope were combined in a longing for Corsica.[12] It was a bitter disappointment that under the army regulations he must serve a year as second lieutenant before leave could be granted. As if to compensate himself and still his longings for home and family, he sought the companionship of a young Corsican artist named Pontornini, then living at Tournon, a few miles distant. To this friendship we owe the first authentic portrait of Buonaparte. It exhibits a striking profile with a well-shaped mouth, and the expression of gravity is remarkable in a sitter so young. The face portrays a studious mind. Even during the months from November to April he had not entirely deserted his favorite studies, and again Rousseau had been their companion and guide. In a little study of Corsica, dated the twenty-sixth of April, 1786, the earliest of his manuscript papers, he refers to the Social Contract of Rousseau with approval, and the last sentence is: "Thus the Corsicans were able, in obedience to all the laws of justice, to shake off the yoke of Genoa, and can do likewise with that of the French. Amen." But in the spring it was the then famous but since forgotten Abbé Raynal of whom he became a devotee. At the first blush it seems as if Buonaparte's studies were irregular and haphazard. It is customary to attribute slender powers of observation and undefined purposes to childhood and youth. The opinion may be correct in the main, and would, for the matter of that, be true as regards the great mass of adults. But the more we know of psychology through autobiographies, the more certain it appears that many a great life-plan has been formed in childhood, and carried through with unbending rigor to the end. Whether Buonaparte consciously ordered the course of his study and reading or not, there is unity in it from first to last.

After the first rude beginnings there were two nearly parallel lines in his work. The first was the acquisition of what was essential to the practice of a profession—nothing more. No one could be a soldier in either army or navy without a practical knowledge of history and geography, for the earth and its inhabitants are in a special sense the elements of military activity. Nor can towns be fortified, nor camps intrenched, nor any of the manifold duties of the general in the field be performed without the science of quantity and numbers. Just these things, and just so far as they were practical, the dark, ambitious boy was willing to learn. For spelling, grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy he had no care; neither he nor his sister Elisa, the two strong natures of the family, could ever spell any language with accuracy and ease, or speak and write with rhetorical elegance. Among the private papers of his youth there is but one mathematical study of any importance; the rest are either trivial, or have some practical bearing on the problems of gunnery. When at Brienne, his patron had certified that he cared nothing for accomplishments and had none. This was the case to the end. But there was another branch of knowledge equally practical, but at that time necessary to so few that it was neither taught nor learned in the schools—the art of politics.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER VI.

Private Study and Garrison Life.

Napoleon as a Student of Politics — Nature of Rousseau's Political Teachings — The Abbé Raynal — Napoleon Aspires to be the Historian of Corsica — Napoleon's First Love — His Notions of Political Science — The Books He Read — Napoleon at Lyons — His Transfer to Douay — A Victim to Melancholy — Return to Corsica.

1786-87.

In one sense it is true that the first Emperor of the French was a man of no age and of no country; in another sense he was, as few have been, the child of his surroundings and of his time. The study of politics was his own notion; the matter and method of the study were conditioned by his relations to the thought of Europe in the eighteenth century. He evidently hoped that his military and political attainments would one day meet in the culmination of a grand career. To the world and probably to himself it seemed as if the glorious period of the Consulate were the realization of this hope. Those years of his life which so appear were, in fact, the least successful. The unsoundness of his political instructors, and the temper of the age, combined to thwart this ambitious purpose, and render unavailing all his achievements.

Rousseau had every fascination for the young of that time—a captivating style, persuasive logic, the sentiment of a poet, the intensity of a prophet. A native of Corsica would be doubly drawn to him by his interest in that romantic island. Sitting at the feet of such a teacher, a young scholar would learn through convincing argument the evils of a passing social state as they were not exhibited elsewhere. He would discern the dangers of ecclesiastical authority, of feudal privilege, of absolute monarchy; he would see their disastrous influence in the prostitution, not only of social, but of personal morality; he would become familiar with the necessity for renewing institutions as the only means of regenerating society. All these lessons would have a value not to be exaggerated. On the other hand, when it came to the substitution of positive teaching for negative criticism, he would learn nothing of value and much that was most dangerous. In utter disregard of a sound historical method, there was set up as the cornerstone of the new political structure a fiction of the most treacherous kind. Buonaparte in his notes, written as he read, shows his contempt for it in an admirable refutation of the fundamental error of Rousseau as to the state of nature by this remark: "I believe man in the state of nature had the same power of sensation and reason which he now has." But if he did not accept the premises, there was a portion of the conclusion which he took with avidity, the most dangerous point in all Rousseau's system; namely, the doctrine that all power proceeds from the people, not because of their nature and their historical organization into families and communities, but because of an agreement by individuals to secure public order, and that, consequently, the consent given they can withdraw, the order they have created they can destroy. In this lay not merely the germ, but the whole system of extreme radicalism, the essence, the substance, and the sum of the French Revolution on its extreme and doctrinaire side.

Rousseau had been the prophet and forerunner of the new social dispensation. The scheme for applying its principles is found in a work which bears the name of a very mediocre person, the Abbé Raynal, a man who enjoyed in his day an extended and splendid reputation which now seems to have had only the slender foundations of unmerited persecution and the friendship of superior men. In 1770 appeared anonymously a volume, of which, as was widely known, he was the compiler. "The Philosophical and Political History of the Establishments and Commerce of the Europeans in the Two Indies" is a miscellany of extracts from many sources, and of short essays by Raynal's brilliant acquaintances, on superstition, tyranny, and similar themes. The reputed author had written for the public prints, and had published several works, none of which attracted attention. The amazing success of this one was not remarkable if, as some critics now believe, at least a third of the text was by Diderot. However this may be, the position of Raynal as a man of letters immediately became a foremost one, and such was the vogue of a second edition published over his name in 1780 that the authorities became alarmed. The climax to his renown was achieved when, in 1781, his book was publicly burned, and the compiler fled into exile.

By 1785 the storm had finally subsided, and though he had not yet returned to France, it is supposed that through the friendship of Mme. du Colombier, the friendly patroness of the young lieutenant, communication was opened between the great man and his aspiring reader.[13] "Not yet eighteen," are the startling words in the letter, written by Buonaparte, "I am a writer: it is the age when we must learn. Will my boldness subject me to your raillery? No, I am sure. If indulgence be a mark of true genius, you should have much indulgence. I inclose chapters one and two of a history of Corsica, with an outline of the rest. If you approve, I will go on; if you advise me to stop, I will go no further." The young historian's letter teems with bad spelling and bad grammar, but it is saturated with the spirit of his age. The chapters as they came to Raynal's hands are not in existence so far as is known, and posterity can never judge how monumental their author's assurance was. The abbé's reply was kindly, but he advised the novice to complete his researches, and then to rewrite his pieces. Buonaparte was not unwilling to profit by the counsels he received: soon after, in July, 1786, he gave two orders to a Genevese bookseller, one for books concerning Corsica, another for the memoirs of Mme. de Warens and her servant Claude Anet, which are a sort of supplement to Rousseau's "Confessions."

During May of the same year he jotted down with considerable fullness his notions of the true relations between Church and State. He had been reading Roustan's reply to Rousseau, and was evidently overpowered with the necessity of subordinating ecclesiastical to secular authority. The paper is rude and incomplete, but it shows whence he derived his policy of dealing with the Pope and the Roman Church in France. It has very unjustly been called an attempted refutation of Christianity: it is nothing of the sort. Ecclesiasticism and Christianity being hopelessly confused in his mind, he uses the terms interchangeably in an academic and polemic discussion to prove that the theory of the social contract must destroy all ecclesiastical assumption of supreme power in the state.

Some of the lagging days were spent not only in novel-reading, as the Emperor in after years confessed to Mme. de Rémusat, but in attempts at novel-writing, to relieve the tedium of idle hours. It is said that first and last Buonaparte read "Werther" five times through. Enough remains among his boyish scribblings to show how fantastic were the dreams both of love and of glory in which he indulged. Many entertain a suspicion that amid the gaieties of the winter he had really lost his heart, or thought he had, and was repulsed. At least, in his "Dialogue on Love," written five years later, he says, "I, too, was once in love," and proceeds, after a few lines, to decry the sentiment as harmful to mankind, a something from which God would do well to emancipate it. This may have referred to his first meeting and conversation with a courtesan at Paris, which he describes in one of his papers, but this is not likely from the context, which is not concerned with the gratification of sexual passion. It is of the nobler sentiment that he speaks, and there seems to have been in the interval no opportunity for philandering so good as the one he had enjoyed during his boyish acquaintance with Mlle. Caroline du Colombier. It has, at all events, been her good fortune to secure, by this supposition, a place in history, not merely as the first girl friend of Napoleon, but as the object of his first pure passion.

But these were his avocations; the real occupation of his time was study. Besides reading again the chief works of Rousseau, and devouring those of Raynal, his most beloved author, he also read much in the works of Voltaire, of Filangieri, of Necker, and of Adam Smith. With note-book and pencil he extracted, annotated, and criticized, his mind alert and every faculty bent to the clear apprehension of the subject in hand. To the conception of the state as a private corporation, which he had imbibed from Rousseau, was now added the conviction that the institutions of France were no longer adapted to the occupations, beliefs, or morals of her people, and that revolution was a necessity. To judge from a memoir presented some years later to the Lyons Academy, he must have absorbed the teachings of the "Two Indies" almost entire.

The consuming zeal for studies on the part of this incomprehensible youth is probably unparalleled. Having read Plutarch in his childhood, he now devoured Herodotus, Strabo, and Diodorus; China, Arabia, and the Indies dazzled his imagination, and what he could lay hands upon concerning the East was soon assimilated. England and Germany next engaged his attention, and toward the close of his studies he became ardent in examining the minutest particulars of French history. It was, moreover, the science of history, and not its literature, which occupied him—dry details of revenue, resources, and institutions; the Sorbonne, the bull Unigenitus, and church history in general; the character of peoples, the origin of institutions, the philosophy of legislation—all these he studied, and, if the fragments of his notes be trustworthy evidence, as they surely are, with some thoroughness. He also found time to read the masterpieces of French literature, and the great critical judgments which had been passed upon them.[14]

The agreeable and studious life at Valence was soon ended. Early in August, 1786, a little rebellion, known as the "Two-cent Revolt," broke out in Lyons over a strike of the silk-weavers for two cents an ell more pay and the revolt of the tavern-keepers against the enforcement of the "Banvin," an ancient feudal right levying a heavy tax on the sale of wine. The neighboring garrisons were ordered to furnish their respective quotas for the suppression of the uprising. Buonaparte's company was sent among others, but those earlier on the ground had been active, several workmen had been killed, and the disturbance was already quelled when he arrived. The days he spent at Lyons were so agreeable that, as he wrote his uncle Fesch, he left the city with regret "to follow his destiny." His regiment had been ordered northward to Douay in Flanders; he returned to Valence and reached that city about the end of August. His furlough began nominally on October first, but for the Corsican officers a month's grace was added, so that he was free to leave on September first.

The time spent under the summer skies of the north would have been dreary enough if he had regularly received news from home. Utterly without success in finding occupation in Corsica, and hopeless as to France, Joseph had some time before turned his eyes toward Tuscany for a possible career. He was now about to make a final effort, and seek personally at the Tuscan capital official recognition with a view to relearning his native tongue, now almost forgotten, and to obtaining subsequent employment of any kind that might offer in the land of his birth. Lucien, the archdeacon, was seriously ill, and General Marbeuf, the last influential friend of the family, had died. Louis had been promised a scholarship in one of the royal artillery schools; deprived of his patron, he would probably lose the appointment. Finally, the pecuniary affairs of Mme. de Buonaparte were again entangled, and now appeared hopeless. She had for a time been receiving an annual state bounty for raising mulberry-trees, as France was introducing silk culture into the island. The inspectors had condemned this year's work, and were withholding a substantial portion of the allowance. These were the facts and they probably reached Napoleon at Valence; it was doubtless a knowledge of them which put an end to all his light-heartedness and to his study, historical or political. He immediately made ready to avail himself of his leave so that he might instantly set out to his mother's relief.

Despondent and anxious, he moped, grew miserable, and contracted a slight malarial fever which for the next six or seven years never entirely relaxed its hold on him. Among his papers has recently been found the long, wild, pessimistic rhapsody to which reference has already been made and in which there is talk of suicide. The plaint is of the degeneracy among men, of the destruction of primitive simplicity in Corsica by the French occupation, of his own isolation, and of his yearning to see his friends once more. Life is no longer worth while; his country gone, a patriot has naught to live for, especially when he has no pleasure and all is pain—when the character of those about him is to his own as moonlight is to sunlight. If there were but a single life in his way, he would bury the avenging blade of his country and her violated laws in the bosom of the tyrant. Some of his complaining was even less coherent than this. It is absurd to take the morbid outpouring seriously, except in so far as it goes to prove that its writer was a victim of the sentimental egoism into which the psychological studies of the eighteenth century had degenerated, and to suggest that possibly if he had not been Napoleon he might have been a Werther. Though dated May third, no year is given, and it may well describe the writer's feelings in any period of despondency. No such state of mind was likely to have arisen in the preceding spring, but it may have been written even then as a relief to pent-up feelings which did not appear on the surface; or possibly in some later year when the agony of suffering for himself and his family laid hold upon him. In any case it expresses a bitter melancholy, such as would be felt by a boy face to face with want.

At Valence Napoleon visited his old friend the Abbé Saint-Ruf, to solicit favor for Lucien, who, having left Brienne, would study nothing but the humanities, and was determined to become a priest. At Aix he saw both his uncle Fesch and his brother. At Marseilles he is said to have paid his respects to the Abbé Raynal, requesting advice, and seeking further encouragement in his historical labors. This is very doubtful, for there is no record of Raynal's return to France before 1787. Lodging in that city, as appears from a memorandum on his papers, with a M. Allard, he must soon have found a vessel sailing for his destination, because he came expeditiously to Ajaccio, arriving in that city toward the middle of the month, if the ordinary time had been consumed in the journey. Such appears to be the likeliest account of this period, although our knowledge is not complete. In the archives of Douay, there is, according to an anonymous local historian, a record of Buonaparte's presence in that city with the regiment of La Fère, and he is quoted as having declared at Elba to Sir Neil Campbell that he had been sent thither. But in the "Epochs of My Life," he wrote that he left Valence on September first, 1786, for Ajaccio, arriving on the fifteenth. Weighing the probabilities, it seems likely that the latter was doubtful, since there is but the slenderest possibility of his having been at Douay in the following year, the only other hypothesis, and there exists no record of his activities in Corsica before the spring of 1787. The chronology of the two years is still involved in obscurity and it is possible that he went with his regiment to Douay, contracted his malaria there, and did not actually get leave of absence until February first of the latter year.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER VII.

Further Attempts at Authorship.

Straits of the Buonaparte Family — Napoleon's Efforts to Relieve Them — Home Studies — His History and Short Stories — Visit to Paris — Renewed Petitions to Government — More Authorship — Secures Extension of his Leave — The Family Fortunes Desperate — The History of Corsica Completed — Its Style, Opinions, and Value — Failure to Find a Publisher — Sentiments Expressed in his Short Stories — Napoleon's Irregularities as a French Officer — His Life at Auxonne — His Vain Appeal to Paoli — The History Dedicated to Necker.

1787-89.

When Napoleon arrived at Ajaccio, and, after an absence of eight years, was again with his family, he found their affairs in a serious condition. Not one of the old French officials remained; the diplomatic leniency of occupation was giving place to the official stringency of a permanent possession; proportionately the disaffection of the patriot remnant among the people was slowly developing into a wide-spread discontent. Joseph, the hereditary head of a family which had been thoroughly French in conduct, and was supposed to be so in sentiment, which at least looked to the King for further favors, was still a stanch royalist. Having been unsuccessful in every other direction, he was now seeking to establish a mercantile connection with Florence which would enable him to engage in the oil-trade. A modest beginning was, he hoped, about to be made. It was high time, for the only support of his mother and her children, in the failure to secure the promised subsidy for her mulberry plantations, was the income of the old archdeacon, who was now confined to his room, and growing feebler every day under attacks of gout. Unfortunately, Joseph's well-meant efforts again came to naught.

The behavior of the pale, feverish, masterful young lieutenant was not altogether praiseworthy. He filled the house with his new-fangled philosophy, and assumed a self-important air. Among his papers and in his own handwriting is a blank form for engaging and binding recruits. Clearly he had a tacit understanding either with himself or with others to secure some of the fine Corsican youth for the regiment of La Fère. But there is no record of any success in the enterprise. Among the letters which he wrote was one dated April first, 1787, to the renowned Dr. Tissot of Lausanne, referring to his correspondent's interest in Paoli, and asking advice concerning the treatment of the canon's gout. The physician never replied, and the epistle was found among his papers marked "unanswered and of little interest." The old ecclesiastic listened to his nephew's patriotic tirades, and even approved; Mme. de Buonaparte coldly disapproved. She would have preferred calmer, more efficient common sense. Not that her son was inactive in her behalf; on the contrary, he began a series of busy representations to the provincial officials which secured some good-will and even trifling favor to the family. But the results were otherwise unsatisfactory, for the mulberry money was not paid.

Napoleon's zeal for study was not in the least abated in the atmosphere of home. Joseph in his memoirs says the reunited family was happy in spite of troubles. There was reciprocal joy in their companionship and his long absent brother was glad in the pleasures both of home and of nature so congenial to his feelings and his tastes. The most important part of Napoleon's baggage appears to have been the books, documents, and papers he brought with him. That he had collections on Corsica has been told. Joseph says he had also the classics of both French and Latin literature as well as the philosophical writings of Plato; likewise, he thinks, Ossian and Homer. In the "Discourse" presented not many years later to the Lyons Academy and in the talks at St. Helena, Napoleon refers to his enjoyment of nature at this time; to the hours spent in the grotto, or under the majestic oak, or in the shade of the olive groves, all parts of the sadly neglected garden of Milleli some distance from the house and belonging to his mother; to his walks on the meadows among the lowing herds; to his wanderings on the shore at sunset, his return by moonlight, and the gentle melancholy which unbidden enveloped him in spite of himself. He savored the air of Corsica, the smell of its earth, the spicy breezes of its thickets, he would have known his home with his eyes shut, and with them open he found it the earthly paradise. Yet all the while he was busy, very busy, partly with good reading, partly in the study of history, and in large measure with the practical conduct of the family affairs.

As the time for return to service drew near it was clear that the mother with her family of four helpless little children, all a serious charge on her time and purse, could not be left without the support of one older son, at least; and Joseph was now about to seek his fortune in Pisa. Accordingly Napoleon with methodical care drew up two papers still existing, a memorandum of how an application for renewed leave on the ground of sickness was to be made and also the form of application itself, which no doubt he copied. At any rate he applied, on the ground of ill health, for a renewal of leave to last five and a half months. It was granted, and the regular round of family cares went on; but the days and weeks brought no relief. Ill health there was, and perhaps sufficient to justify that plea, but the physical fever was intensified by the checks which want set upon ambition. The passion for authorship reasserted itself with undiminished violence. The history of Corsica was resumed, recast, and vigorously continued, while at the same time the writer completed a short story entitled "The Count of Essex,"—with an English setting, of course,—and wrote a Corsican novel. The latter abounds in bitterness against France, the most potent force in the development of the plot being the dagger. The author's use of French, though easier, is still very imperfect. A slight essay, or rather story, in the style of Voltaire, entitled "The Masked Prophet," was also completed.

It was reported early in the autumn that many regiments were to be mobilized for special service, among them that of La Fère. This gave Napoleon exactly the opening he desired, and he left Corsica at once, without reference to the end of his furlough. He reached Paris in October, a fortnight before he was due. His regiment was still at Douay: he may have spent a few days with it in that city. But this is not certain, and soon after it was transferred to St. Denis, now almost a suburb of Paris; it was destined for service in western France, where incipient tumults were presaging the coming storm. Eventually its destination was changed and it was ordered to Auxonne. The Estates-General of France were about to meet for the first time in one hundred and seventy-five years; they had last met in 1614, and had broken up in disorder. They were now called as a desperate remedy, not understood, but at least untried, for ever-increasing embarrassments; and the government, fearing still greater disorders, was making ready to repress any that might break out in districts known to be specially disaffected. All this was apparently of secondary importance to young Buonaparte; he had a scheme to use the crisis for the benefit of his family. Compelled by their utter destitution at the time of his father's death, he had temporarily and for that occasion assumed his father's rôle of suppliant. Now for a second time he sent in a petition. It was written in Paris, dated November ninth, 1787, and addressed, in his mother's behalf, to the intendant for Corsica resident at the French capital. His name and position must have carried some weight, it could not have been the mere effrontery of an adventurer which secured him a hearing at Versailles, an interview with the prime minister, Loménie de Brienne, and admission to all the minor officials who might deal with his mother's claim. All these privileges he declares that he had enjoyed and the statements must have been true. The petition was prefaced by a personal letter containing them. Though a supplication in form, the request is unlike his father's humble and almost cringing papers, being rather a demand for justice than a petition for favor; it is unlike them in another respect, because it contains a falsehood, or at least an utterly misleading half-truth: a statement that he had shortened his leave because of his mother's urgent necessities.

The paper was not handed in until after the expiration of his leave, and his true object was not to rejoin his regiment, as was hinted in it, but to secure a second extension of leave. Such was the slackness of discipline that he spent all of November and the first half of December in Paris. During this period he made acquaintance with the darker side of Paris life. The papers numbered four, five, and six in the Fesch collection give a fairly detailed account of one adventure and his bitter repentance. The second suggests the writing of history as an antidote for unhappiness, and the last is a long, rambling effusion in denunciation of pleasure, passion, and license; of gallantry as utterly incompatible with patriotism. His acquaintance with history is ransacked for examples. Still another short effusion which may belong to the same period is in the form of an imaginary letter, saturated likewise with the Corsican spirit, addressed by King Theodore to Walpole. It has little value or meaning, except as it may possibly foreshadow the influence on Napoleon's imagination of England's boundless hospitality to political fugitives like Theodore and Paoli.

Lieutenant Buonaparte remained in Paris until he succeeded in procuring permission to spend the next six months in Corsica, at his own charges. He was quite as disingenuous in his request to the Minister of War as in his memorial to the intendant for Corsica, representing that the estates of Corsica were about to meet, and that his presence was essential to safeguard important interests which in his absence would be seriously compromised. Whatever such a plea may have meant, his serious cares as the real head of the family were ever uppermost, and never neglected. Louis had, as was feared, lost his appointment, and though not past the legal age, was really too old to await another vacancy; Lucien was determined to leave Brienne in any case, and to stay at Aix in order to seize the first chance which might arise of entering the seminary. Napoleon made some provision—what it was is not known—for Louis's further temporary stay at Brienne, and then took Lucien with him as far as their route lay together. He reached his home again on the first of January, 1788.

The affairs of the family were at last utterly desperate, and were likely, moreover, to grow worse before they grew better. The old archdeacon was failing daily, and, although known to have means, he declared himself destitute of ready money. With his death would disappear a portion of his income; his patrimony and savings, which the Buonapartes hoped of course to inherit, were an uncertain quantity, probably insufficient for the needs of such a family. The mulberry money was still unpaid; all hope of wresting the ancestral estates from the government authorities was buried; Joseph was without employment, and, as a last expedient, was studying in Pisa for admission to the bar. Louis and Lucien were each a heavy charge; Napoleon's income was insufficient even for his own modest wants, regulated though they were by the strictest economy. Who shall cast a stone at the shiftiness of a boy not yet nineteen, charged with such cares, yet consumed with ambition, and saturated with the romantic sentimentalism of his times? Some notion of his embarrassments and despair can be obtained from a rapid survey of his mental states and the corresponding facts. An ardent republican and revolutionary, he was tied by the strongest bonds to the most despotic monarchy in Europe. A patriotic Corsican, he was the servant of his country's oppressor. Conscious of great ability, he was seeking an outlet in the pursuit of literature, a line of work entirely unsuited to his powers. The head and support of a large family, he was almost penniless; if he should follow his convictions, he and they might be altogether so. In the period of choice and requiring room for experiment, he saw himself doomed to a fixed, inglorious career, and caged in a framework of unpropitious circumstance. Whatever the moral obliquity in his feeble expedients, there is the pathos of human limitations in their character.

Whether the resolution had long before been taken, or was of recent formation, Napoleon now intended to make fame and profit go hand in hand. The meeting of the Corsican estates was, as far as is known, entirely forgotten, and authorship was resumed, not merely with the ardor of one who writes from inclination, but with the regular drudgery of a craftsman. In spite of all discouragements, he appeared to a visitor in his family, still considered the most devoted in the island to the French monarchy because so favored by it, as being "full of vivacity, quick in his speech and motions, his mind apparently hard at work in digesting schemes and forming plans and proudly rejecting every other suggestion but that of his own fancy. For this intolerable ambition he was often reproved by the elder Lucien, his uncle, a dignitary of the church. Yet these admonitions seemed to make no impression upon the mind of Napoleon, who received them with a grin of pity, if not of contempt."[15] The amusements of the versatile and headstrong boy would have been sufficient occupation for most men. Regulating, as far as possible, his mother's complicated affairs, he journeyed frequently to Bastia, probably to collect money due for young mulberry-trees which had been sold, possibly to get material for his history. On these visits he met and dined with the artillery officers of the company stationed there. One of them, M. de Roman, a very pronounced royalist, has given in his memoirs a striking portrait of his guest.[16] "His face was not pleasing to me at all, his character still less; and he was so dry and sententious for a youth of his age, a French officer too, that I never for a moment entertained the thought of making him my friend. My knowledge of governments, ancient and modern, was not sufficiently extended to discuss with him his favorite subject of conversation. So when in my turn I gave the dinner, which happened three or four times that year, I retired after the coffee, leaving him to the hands of a captain of ours, far better able than I was to lock arms with such a valiant antagonist. My comrades, like myself, saw nothing in this but absurd pedantry. We even believed that this magisterial tone which he assumed was meaningless until one day when he reasoned so forcibly on the rights of nations in general, his own in particular, Stupete gentes! that we could not recover from our amazement, especially when in speaking of a meeting of their Estates, about calling which there was some deliberation, and which M. de Barrin sought to delay, following in that the blunders of his predecessor, he said: 'that it was very surprising that M. de Barrin thought to prevent them from deliberating about their interests,' adding in a threatening tone, 'M. de Barrin does not know the Corsicans; he will see what they can do.' This expression gave the measure of his character. One of our comrades replied: 'Would you draw your sword against the King's representative?' He made no answer. We separated coldly and that was the last time this former comrade did me the honor to dine with me." Making all allowance, this incident exhibits the feeling and purpose of Napoleon. During these days he also completed a plan for the defense of St. Florent, of La Mortilla, and of the Gulf of Ajaccio; drew up a report on the organization of the Corsican militia; and wrote a paper on the strategic importance of the Madeleine Islands. This was his play; his work was the history of Corsica. It was finished sooner than he had expected; anxious to reap the pecuniary harvest of his labors and resume his duties, he was ready for the printer when he left for France in the latter part of May to secure its publication. Although dedicated in its first form to a powerful patron, Monseigneur Marbeuf, then Bishop of Sens, like many works from the pen of genius it remained at the author's death in manuscript.

The book was of moderate size, and of moderate merit.[17] Its form, repeatedly changed from motives of expediency, was at first that of letters addressed to the Abbé Raynal. Its contents display little research and no scholarship. The style is intended to be popular, and is dramatic rather than narrative. There is exhibited, as everywhere in these early writings, an intense hatred of France, a glowing affection for Corsica and her heroes. A very short account of one chapter will sufficiently characterize the whole work. Having outlined in perhaps the most effective passage the career of Sampiero, and sketched his diplomatic failures at all the European courts except that of Constantinople, where at last he had secured sympathy and was promised aid, the author depicts the patriot's bitterness when recalled by the news of his wife's treachery. Confronting his guilty spouse, deaf to every plea for pity, hardened against the tender caresses of his children, the Corsican hero utters judgment. "Madam," he sternly says, "in the face of crime and disgrace, there is no other resort but death." Vannina at first falls unconscious, but, regaining her senses, she clasps her children to her breast and begs life for their sake. But feeling that the petition is futile, she then recalls the memory of her earlier virtue, and, facing her fate, begs as a last favor that no base executioner shall lay his soiled hands on the wife of Sampiero, but that he himself shall execute the sentence. Vannina's behavior moves her husband, but does not touch his heart. "The pity and tenderness," says Buonaparte, "which she should have awakened found a soul thenceforward closed to the power of sentiment. Vannina died. She died by the hands of Sampiero."

Neither the publishers of Valence, nor those of Dôle, nor those of Auxonne, would accept the work. At Paris one was finally found who was willing to take a half risk. The author, disillusioned but sanguine, was on the point of accepting the proposition, and was occupied with considering ways and means, when his friend the Bishop of Sens was suddenly disgraced. The manuscript was immediately copied and revised, with the result, probably, of making its tone more intensely Corsican; for it was now to be dedicated to Paoli. The literary aspirant must have foreseen the coming crash, and must have felt that the exile was to be again the liberator, and perhaps the master, of his native land. At any rate, he abandoned the idea of immediate publication, possibly in the dawning hope that as Paoli's lieutenant he could make Corsican history better than he could write it. It is this copy which has been preserved; the original was probably destroyed.

The other literary efforts of this feverish time were not as successful even as those in historical writing. The stories are wild and crude; one only, "The Masked Prophet," has any merit or interest whatsoever. Though more finished than the others, its style is also abrupt and full of surprises; the scene and characters are Oriental; the plot is a feeble invention. An ambitious and rebellious Ameer is struck with blindness, and has recourse to a silver mask to deceive his followers. Unsuccessful, he poisons them all, throws their corpses into pits of quicklime, then leaps in himself, to deceive the world and leave no trace of mortality behind. His enemies believe, as he desired, that he and his people have been taken up into heaven. The whole, however, is dimly prescient, and the concluding lines of the fable have been thought by believers in augury to be prophetic. "Incredible instance! How far can the passion for fame go!" Among the papers of this period are also a constitution for the "calotte," a secret society of his regiment organized to keep its members up to the mark of conduct expected from gentlemen and officers, and many political notes. One of these rough drafts is a project for an essay on royal power, intended to treat of its origin and to display its usurpations, and which closes with these words: "There are but few kings who do not deserve to be dethroned."

The various absences of Buonaparte from his regiment up to this time are antagonistic to our modern ideas of military duty. The subsequent ones seem simply inexplicable, even in a service so lax as that of the crumbling Bourbon dynasty. Almost immediately after Joseph's return, on the first of June he sailed for France. He did not reach Auxonne, where the artillery regiment La Fère was now stationed, until early in that month, 1788. He remained there less than a year and a half, and then actually obtained another leave of absence, from September tenth, 1789, to February, 1791, which he fully intended should end in his retirement from the French service.[18] The incidents of this second term of garrison life are not numerous, but from the considerable body of his notes and exercises which dates from the period we know that he suddenly developed great zeal in the study of artillery, theoretical and practical, and that he redoubled his industry in the pursuit of historical and political science. In the former line he worked diligently and became expert. With his instructor Duteil he grew intimate and the friendship was close throughout life. He associated on the best of terms with his old friend des Mazis and began a pleasant acquaintance with Gassendi. So faithful was he to the minutest details of his profession that he received marks of the highest distinction. Not yet twenty and only a second lieutenant, he was appointed, with six officers of higher rank, a member of the regimental commission to study the best disposal of mortars and cannon in firing shells. Either at this time or later (the date is uncertain), he had sole charge of important manœuvers held in honor of the Prince of Condé. These honors he recounted with honest pride in a letter dated August twenty-second to his great-uncle. Among the Fesch papers are considerable fragments of his writing on the theory, practice, and history of artillery. Antiquated as are their contents, they show how patient and thorough was the work of the student, and some of their ideas adapted to new conditions were his permanent possession, as the greatest master of artillery at the height of his fame. In the study of politics he read Plato and examined the constitutions of antiquity, devouring with avidity what literature he could find concerning Venice, Turkey, Tartary, and Arabia. At the same time he carefully read the history of England, and made some accurate observations on the condition of contemporaneous politics in France.

His last disappointment had rendered him more taciturn and misanthropic than ever; it seems clear that he was working to become an expert, not for the benefit of France, but for that of Corsica. Charged with the oversight of some slight works on the fortifications, he displayed such incompetence that he was actually punished by a short arrest. Misfortune still pursued the family. The youth who had been appointed to Brienne when Louis was expecting a scholarship suddenly died. Mme. de Buonaparte was true to the family tradition, and immediately forwarded a petition for the place, but was, as before, unsuccessful. Lucien was not yet admitted to Aix; Joseph was a barrister, to be sure, but briefless. Napoleon once again, but for the last time,—and with marked impatience, even with impertinence,—took up the task of solicitation. The only result was a good-humored, non-committal reply. Meantime the first mutterings of the revolutionary outbreak were heard, and spasmodic disorders, trifling but portentous, were breaking out, not only among the people, but even among the royal troops. One of these, at Seurre, was occasioned by the news that the hated and notorious syndicate existing under the scandalous agreement with the King known as the "Bargain of Famine" had been making additional purchases of grain from two merchants of that town. This was in April, 1789. Buonaparte was put in command of a company and sent to aid in suppressing the riot. But it was ended before he arrived; on May first he returned to Auxonne.

From the collection of W. C. Crane. Engraved by Huot.

Charles Bonaparte,
Father of the Emperor Napoleon,
1785.

Painted by Girodet.

Four days later the Estates met at Versailles. What was passing in the mind of the restless, bitter, disappointed Corsican is again plainly revealed. A famous letter to Paoli, to which reference has already been made, is dated June twelfth. It is a justification of his cherished work as the only means open to a poor man, the slave of circumstances, for summoning the French administration to the bar of public opinion; viz., by comparing it with Paoli's. Willing to face the consequences, the writer asks for documentary materials and for moral support, ending with ardent assurances of devotion from his family, his mother, and himself. But there is a ring of false coin in many of its words and sentences. The "infamy" of those who betrayed Corsica was the infamy of his own father; the "devotion" of the Buonaparte family had been to the French interest, in order to secure free education, with support for their children, in France. The "enthusiasm" of Napoleon was a cold, unsentimental determination to push their fortunes, which, with opposite principles, would have been honorable enough. In later years Lucien said that he had made two copies of the history. It was probably one of these which has been preserved. Whether or not Paoli read the book does not appear. Be that as it may, his reply to Buonaparte's letter, written some months later, was not calculated to encourage the would-be historian. Without absolutely refusing the documents asked for by the aspiring writer, he explained that he had no time to search for them, and that, besides, Corsican history was only important in any sense by reason of the men who had made it, not by reason of its achievements. Among other bits of fatherly counsel was this: "You are too young to write history. Make ready for such an enterprise slowly. Patiently collect your anecdotes and facts. Accept the opinions of other writers with reserve." As if to soften the severity of his advice, there follows a strain of modest self-depreciation: "Would that others had known less of me and I more of myself. Probe diu vivimus; may our descendants so live that they shall speak of me merely as one who had good intentions."

Buonaparte's last shift in the treatment of his book was most undignified and petty. With the unprincipled resentment of despair, in want of money, not of advice, he entirely remodeled it for the third time, its chapters being now put as fragmentary traditions into the mouth of a Corsican mountaineer. In this form it was dedicated to Necker, the famous Swiss, who as French minister of finance was vainly struggling with the problem of how to distribute taxation equally, and to collect from the privileged classes their share. A copy was first sent to a former teacher for criticism. His judgment was extremely severe both as to expression and style. In particular, attention was called to the disadvantage of indulging in so much rhetoric for the benefit of an overworked public servant like Necker, and to the inappropriateness of putting his own metaphysical generalizations and captious criticism of French royalty into the mouth of a peasant mountaineer. Before the correspondence ended, Napoleon's student life was over. Necker had fled, the French Revolution was rushing on with ever-increasing speed, and the young adventurer, despairing of success as a writer, seized the proffered opening to become a man of action. In a letter dated January twelfth, 1789, and written at Auxonne to his mother, the young officer gives a dreary account of himself. The swamps of the neighborhood and their malarious exhalations rendered the place, he thought, utterly unwholesome. At all events, he had contracted a low fever which undermined his strength and depressed his spirits. There was no immediate hope of a favorable response to the petition for the moneys due on the mulberry plantation because "this unhappy period in French finance delays furiously (sic) the discussion of our affair. Let us hope, however, that we may be compensated for our long and weary waiting and that we shall receive complete restitution." He writes further a terse sketch of public affairs in France and Europe, speaks despairingly of what the council of war has in store for the engineers by the proposed reorganization, and closes with tender remembrances to Joseph and Lucien, begging for news and reminding them that he had received no home letter since the preceding October. The reader feels that matters have come to a climax and that the scholar is soon to enter the arena of revolutionary activity. Curiously enough, the language used is French; this is probably due to the fact that it was intended for the family, rather than for the neighborhood circle.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER VIII.

The Revolution in France.

The French Aristocracy — Priests, Lawyers, and Petty Nobles — Burghers, Artisans, and Laborers — Intelligent Curiosity of the Nation — Exasperating Anachronisms — Contrast of Demand and Resources — The Great Nobles a Barrier to Reform — Mistakes of the King — The Estates Meet at Versailles — The Court Party Provokes Violence — Downfall of Feudal Privilege.

1787-89.

At last the ideas of the century had declared open war on its institutions; their moral conquest was already coextensive with central and western Europe, but the first efforts toward their realization were to be made in France, for the reason that the line of least resistance was to be found not through the most downtrodden, but through the freest and the best instructed nation on the Continent. Both the clergy and the nobility of France had become accustomed to the absorption in the crown of their ancient feudal power. They were content with the great offices in the church, in the army, and in the civil administration, with exemption from the payment of taxes; they were happy in the delights of literature and the fine arts, in the joys of a polite, self-indulgent, and spendthrift society, so artificial and conventional that for most of its members a sufficient occupation was found in the study and exposition of its trivial but complex customs. The conduct and maintenance of a salon, the stage, gallantry; clothes, table manners, the use of the fan: these are specimens of what were considered not the incidents but the essentials of life.

The serious-minded among the upper classes were as enlightened as any of their rank elsewhere. They were familiar with prevalent philosophies, and full of compassion for miseries which, for lack of power, they could not remedy, and which, to their dismay, they only intensified in their attempts at alleviation. They were even ready for considerable sacrifices. The gracious side of the character of Louis XVI is but a reflection of the piety, moderation, and earnestness of many of the nobles. His rule was mild; there were no excessive indignities practised in the name of royal power except in cases like that of the "Bargain of Famine," where he believed himself helpless. The lower clergy, as a whole, were faithful in the performance of their duties. This was not true of the hierarchy. They were great landowners, and their interests coincided with those of the upper nobility. The doubt of the country had not left them untouched, and there were many without conviction or principle, time-serving and irreverent. The lawyers and other professional men were to be found, for the most part, in Paris and in the towns. They had their livelihood in the irregularities of society, and, as a class, were retentive of ancient custom and present social habits. Although by birth they belonged in the main to the third estate, they were in reality adjunct to the first, and consequently, being integral members of neither, formed a strong independent class by themselves. The petty nobles were in much the same condition with regard to the wealthy, powerful families in their own estate and to the rich burghers; they married the fortunes of the latter and accepted their hospitality, but otherwise treated them with the same exclusive condescension as that displayed to themselves by the great.

But if the estate of the clergy and the estate of the nobility were alike divided in character and interests, this was still more true of the burghers. In 1614, at the close of the middle ages, the third estate had been little concerned with the agricultural laborer. For various reasons this class had been gradually emancipated until now there was less serfage in France than elsewhere; more than a quarter, perhaps a third, of the land was in the hands of peasants and other small proprietors. This, to be sure, was economically disastrous, for over-division of land makes tillage unprofitable, and these very men were the taxpayers. The change had been still more marked in the denizens of towns. During the last two centuries the wealthy burgesses had grown still more wealthy in the expansion of trade, commerce, and manufactures; many had struggled and bought their way into the ranks of the nobility. The small tradesmen had remained smug, hard to move, and resentful of change. But there was a large body of men unknown to previous constitutions, and growing ever larger with the increase in population—intelligent and unintelligent artisans, half-educated employees in workshops, mills, and trading-houses, ever recruited from the country population, seeking such intermittent occupation as the towns afforded. The very lowest stratum of this society was then, as now, most dangerous; idle, dissipated, and unscrupulous, they were yet sufficiently educated to discuss and disseminate perilous doctrines, and were often most ready in speech and fertile in resource.

This comparative well-being of a nation, devoted like the ancient Greeks to novelty, avid of great ideas and great deeds, holding opinions not merely for the pleasure of intellectual gymnastics but logically and with a view to their realization, sensitive to influences like the deep impressions made on their thinkers by the English and American revolutions—such relative comfort with its attendant opportunities for discussion was not the least of many causes which made France the vanguard in the great revolution which had already triumphed in theory throughout the continent and was eventually to transform the social order of all Europe.

Discussion is not only a safety-valve, it is absolutely essential in governments where the religion, morals, opinions, and occupations of the people give form and character to institutions and legislation. The centralized and despotic Bourbon monarchy of France was an anachronism among an intelligent people. So was every institution emanating from and dependent upon it. It was impossible for the structure to stand indefinitely, however tenderly it was treated, however cleverly it was propped and repaired. As in the case of England in 1688 and of her colonies in 1772, the immediate and direct agency in the crash was a matter of money. But the analogy holds good no further, for in France the questions of property and taxation were vastly more complex than in England, where the march of events had so largely destroyed feudalism, or in America, where feudalism had never existed. On the great French estates the laborers had first to support the proprietor and his representatives, then the Church and the King; the minute remainder of their gains was scarcely sufficient to keep the wolf from the door. The small proprietors were so hampered in their operations by the tiny size of their holdings that they were still restricted to ancient and wretched methods of cultivation; but they too were so burdened with contributions direct and indirect that famine was always imminent with them as well. Under whatever name the tax was known, license (octroi), bridge and ferry toll, road-work, salt-tax, or whatever it may have been, it was chiefly distasteful not because of its form but because it was oppressive. Some of it was paid to the proprietors, some to the state. The former was more hateful because the gainer was near and more tangible; the hatred of the country people for the feudal privileges and those who held them was therefore concrete and quite as intense as the more doctrinaire dislike of the poor in the towns to the rich. Such was the alienation of classes from each other throughout the beginning and middle of the century that the disasters which French arms suffered at the hands of Marlborough and Frederick, so far from humiliating the nation, gave pleasure and not pain to the masses because they were, as they thought, defeats not of France, but of the nobility and of the crown.

Feudal dues had arisen when those imposing them had the physical force to compel their payment and were also the proprietors of the land on which they were exacted. Now the nobility were entirely stripped of power and in many instances of land as well. How empty and bottomless the oppressive institutions and how burdensome the taxes which rested on nothing but a paper grant, musty with age and backed only by royal complaisance! Want too was always looking in at the doors of the many, while the few were enjoying the national substance. This year there was a crisis, for before the previous harvest time devastating hail-storms had swept the fields, in 1788; during the winter there had been pinching want and many had perished from destitution and cold; the advancing seasons had brought warmth, but sufficient time had not even yet elapsed for fields and herds to bring forth their increase, and by the myriad firesides of the people hunger was still an unwelcome guest.

With wholesome economy such crises may be surmounted in a rich and fertile country. But economy had not been practised for fifty years by the governing classes. As early as 1739 there had been a deficiency in the French finances. From small beginnings the annual loans had grown until, in 1787, the sum to be raised over and above the regular income was no less than thirty-two millions of dollars. This was all due to the extravagance of the court and the aristocracy, who spent, for the most part, far more than the amount they actually collected and which they honestly believed to be their income. Such a course was vastly more disastrous than it appeared, being ruinous not only to personal but to national well-being, inasmuch as what the nobles, even the earnest and honest ones, believed to be their legitimate income was not really such. Two thirds of the land was in their hands; the other third paid the entire land-tax. They were therefore regarding as their own two thirds of what was in reality taken altogether from the pockets of the small proprietors. Small sacrifices the ruling class professed itself ready to make, but such a one as to pay their share of the land-tax—never. It had been proposed also to destroy the monopoly of the grain trade, and to abolish the road-work, a task more hateful to the people than any tax, because it brought them into direct contact with the exasperating superciliousness of petty officials. But in all these proposed reforms, Necker, Calonne, and Loménie de Brienne, each approaching the nobles from a separate standpoint, had alike failed. The nobility could see in such retrenchment and change nothing but ruin for themselves. An assembly of notables, called in 1781, would not listen to propositions which seemed suicidal. The King began to alienate the affection of his natural allies, the people, by yielding to the clamor of the court party. From the nobility he could wring nothing. The royal treasury was therefore actually bankrupt, the nobles believed that they were threatened with bankruptcy, and the people knew that they themselves were not only bankrupt, but also hungry and oppressed.

At last the King, aware of the nation's extremity, began to undertake reforms without reference to class prejudice, and on his own authority. He decreed a stamp-tax, and the equal distribution of the land-tax. He strove to compel the unwilling parliament of Paris, a court of justice which, though ancient, he himself had but recently reconstituted, to register his decrees, and then banished it from the capital because it would not. That court had been the last remaining check on absolutism in the country, and, as such, an ally of the people; so that although the motives and the measures of Louis were just, the high-handed means to which he resorted in order to carry them alienated him still further from the affections of the nation. The parliament, in justifying its opposition, had declared that taxes in France could be laid only by the Estates-General. The people had almost forgotten the very name, and were entirely ignorant of what that body was, vaguely supposing that, like the English Parliament or the American Congress, it was in some sense a legislative assembly. They therefore made their voice heard in no uncertain sound, demanding that the Estates should meet. Louis abandoned his attitude of independence, and recalled the Paris parliament from Troyes, but only to exasperate its members still further by insisting on a huge loan, on the restoration of civil rights to the Protestants, and on restricting, not only its powers, but those of all similar courts throughout the realm. The parliament then declared that France was a limited monarchy with constitutional checks on the power of the crown, and exasperated men flocked to the city to remonstrate against the menace to their liberties in the degradation of all the parliaments by the King's action in regard to that of Paris. Those from Brittany formed an association, which soon admitted other members, and developed into the notorious Jacobin Club, so called from its meeting-place, a convent on the Rue St. Honoré, once occupied by Dominican monks who had moved thither from the Rue St. Jacques.

To summon the Estates was a virtual confession that absolutism in France was at an end. In the seventeenth century the three estates deliberated separately. Such matters came before them as were submitted by the crown, chiefly demands for revenue. A decision was reached by the agreement of any two of the three, and whatever proposition the crown submitted was either accepted or rejected. There was no real legislation. Louis no doubt hoped that the eighteenth-century assembly would be like that of the seventeenth. He could then, by the coalition of the nobles and the clergy against the burghers, or by any other arrangement of two to one, secure authorization either for his loans or for his reforms, as the case might be, and so carry both. But the France of 1789 was not the France of 1614. As soon as the call for the meeting was issued, and the decisive steps were taken, the whole country was flooded with pamphlets. Most of them were ephemeral; one was epochal. In it the Abbé Sieyès asked the question, "What is the third estate?" and answered so as to strengthen the already spreading conviction that the people of France were really the nation. The King was so far convinced as to agree that the third estate should be represented by delegates equal in number to those of the clergy and nobles combined. The elections passed quietly, and on May fifth, 1789, the Estates met at Versailles, under the shadow of the court. It was immediately evident that the hands of the clock could not be put back two centuries, and that here was gathered an assembly unlike any that had ever met in the country, determined to express the sentiments, and to be the executive, of the masses who in their opinion constituted the nation. On June seventeenth, therefore, after long talk and much hesitation, the representatives of the third estate declared themselves the representatives of the whole nation, and invited their colleagues of the clergy and nobles to join them. Their meeting-place having been closed in consequence of this decision, they gathered without authorization in the royal tennis-court on June twentieth, and bound themselves by oath not to disperse until they had introduced a new order. Louis was nevertheless nearly successful in his plan of keeping the sittings of the three estates separate. He was thwarted by the eloquence and courage of Mirabeau. On June twenty-seventh a majority of the delegates from the two upper estates joined those of the third estate in constituting a national assembly.

At this juncture the court party began the disastrous policy which in the end was responsible for most of the terrible excesses of the French Revolution, by insisting that troops should be called to restrain the Assembly, and that Necker should be banished. Louis showed the same vacillating spirit now that he had displayed in yielding to the Assembly, and assented. The noble officers had lately shown themselves untrustworthy, and the men in the ranks refused to obey when called to fight against the people. The baser social elements of the whole country had long since swarmed to the capital. Their leaders now fanned the flame of popular discontent until at last resort was had to violence. On July twelfth the barriers of Paris were burned, and the regular troops were defeated by the mob in the Place Vendôme; on July fourteenth the Bastille, in itself a harmless anachronism, but considered by the masses to typify all the tyrannical shifts and inhuman oppressions known to despotism, was razed to the ground. As if to crown their baseness, the extreme conservatives among the nobles, the very men who had brought the King to such straits, now abandoned him and fled.

Louis finally bowed to the storm, and came to reside among his people in Paris, as a sign of submission. Bailly, an excellent and judicious man, was made mayor of the city, and Lafayette, with his American laurels still unfaded, was made commander of a newly organized force, to be known as the National Guard. On July seventeenth the King accepted the red, white, and blue—the recognized colors of liberty—as national. The insignia of a dynasty were exchanged for the badge of a principle. A similar transformation took place throughout the land, and administration everywhere passed quietly into the hands of the popular representatives. The flying nobles found their châteaux hotter than Paris. Not only must the old feudal privileges go, but with them the old feudal grants, the charters of oppression in the muniment chests. These charters the peasants insisted must be destroyed. If they could not otherwise gain possession of them, they resorted to violence, and sometimes in the intoxication of the hour they exceeded the bounds of reason, abusing both the persons and the legitimate property of their enemies. Death or surrender was often the alternative. So it was that there was no refuge on their estates, not even a temporary one, for those who had so long possessed them. Many had already passed into foreign lands; the emigration increased, and continued in a steady stream. The moderate nobles, honest patriots to whom life in exile was not life at all, now clearly saw that their order must yield: in the night session of August fourth, sometimes called the "St. Bartholomew of privilege," they surrendered their privileges in a mass. Every vestige, not only of feudal, but also of chartered privilege, was to be swept away; even the King's hunting-grounds were to be reduced to the dimensions permitted to a private gentleman. All men alike, it was agreed, were to renounce the conventional and arbitrary distinctions which had created inequality in civil and political life, and accept the absolute equality of citizenship. Liberty and fraternity were the two springers of the new arch; its keystone was to be equality. On August twenty-third the Assembly decreed freedom of religious opinion; on the next day freedom of the press.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER IX.

Buonaparte and Revolution in Corsica.

Napoleon's Studies Continued at Auxonne — Another Illness and a Furlough — His Scheme of Corsican Liberation — His Appearance at Twenty — His Attainments and Character — His Shifty Conduct — The Homeward Journey — New Parties in Corsica — Salicetti and the Nationalists — Napoleon Becomes a Political Agitator and Leader of the Radicals — The National Assembly Incorporates Corsica with France and Grants Amnesty to Paoli — Momentary Joy of the Corsican Patriots — The French Assembly Ridicules Genoa's Protest — Napoleon's Plan for Corsican Administration.

1789-90.

Such were the events taking place in the great world while Buonaparte was at Auxonne. That town, as had been expected, was most uneasy, and on July nineteenth, 1789, there was an actual outbreak of violence, directed there, as elsewhere, against the tax-receivers. The riot was easily suppressed, and for some weeks yet, the regular round of studious monotony in the young lieutenant's life was not disturbed except as his poverty made his asceticism more rigorous. "I have no other resource but work," he wrote to his mother; "I dress but once in eight days [Sunday parade?]; I sleep but little since my illness; it is incredible. I retire at ten, and rise at four in the morning. I take but one meal a day, at three; that is good for my health."

More bad news came from Corsica. The starving patriot fell seriously ill, and for a time his life hung in the balance. On August eighth he was at last sufficiently restored to travel, and applied for a six-months' furlough, to begin immediately. Under the regulations, in spite of his previous leaves and irregularities, he was this year entitled to such a vacation, but not before October. His plea that the winter was unfavorable for the voyage to Corsica was characteristic, for it was neither altogether true nor altogether false. He was feverish and ill, excited by news of turmoils at home, and wished to be on the scene of action; this would have been a true and sufficient ground for his request. It was likewise true, however, that his chance for a smooth passage was better in August than in October, and this evident fact, though probably irrelevant, might move the authorities. Their answer was favorable, and on September sixteenth he left Auxonne.

In the interval occurred a mutiny in the regiment. The pay of the men was far in arrears, and they demanded a division of the surplus which had accumulated from the various regimental grants, and which was managed by the officers for the benefit of their own mess. The officers were compelled to yield, so far had revolutionary license supplanted royal and military authority. Of course a general orgy followed. It seems to have been during these days that the scheme of Corsican liberation which brought him finally into the field of politics took shape in Napoleon's mind. Fesch had returned to Corsica, and had long kept his nephew thoroughly informed of the situation. By the anarchy prevailing all about him in France, and beginning to prevail in Corsica, his eyes were opened to the possibilities of the Revolution for one who knew how to take advantage of the changed order.

The appearance of Buonaparte in his twentieth year was not in general noteworthy. His head was shapely, but not uncommon in size, although disproportionate to the frame which bore it. His forehead was wide and of medium height; on each side long chestnut hair—lanky as we may suppose from his own account of his personal habits—fell in stiff, flat locks over his lean cheeks. His eyes were large, and in their steel-blue irises, lurking under deep-arched and projecting brows, was a penetrating quality which veiled the mind within. The nose was straight and shapely, the mouth large, the lips full and sensuous, although the powerful projecting chin diminished somewhat the true effect of the lower one. His complexion was sallow. The frame of his body was in general small and fine, particularly his hands and feet; but his deep chest and short neck were huge. This lack of proportion did not, however, interfere with his gait, which was firm and steady. The student of character would have declared the stripling to be self-reliant and secretive; ambitious and calculating; masterful, but kindly. In an age when phrenology was a mania, its masters found in his cranium the organs of what they called imagination and causality, of individuality, comparison, and locality—by which jargon they meant to say that he had a strong power of imaging and of inductive reasoning, a knowledge of men, of places, and of things.

The life of the young officer had thus far been so commonplace as to awaken little expectation for his future. Poor as he was, and careful of his slim resources, he had, like the men of his class, indulged his passions to a certain degree; but he had not been riotous in his living, and he had so far not a debt in the world. What his education and reading were makes clear that he could have known nothing with a scholar's comprehensive thoroughness except the essentials of his profession. But he could master details as no man before or since; he had a vast fund of information, and a historic outline drawn in fair proportion and powerful strokes. His philosophy was meager, but he knew the principles of Rousseau and Raynal thoroughly. His conception of politics and men was not scientific, but it was clear and practical. The trade of arms had not been to his taste. He heartily disliked routine, and despised the petty duties of his rank. His profession, however, was a means to an end; of any mastery of strategy or tactics or even interest in them he had as yet given no sign, but he was absorbed in contemplating and analyzing the exploits of the great world-conquerors. In particular his mind was dazzled by the splendors of the Orient as the only field on which an Alexander could have displayed himself, and he knew what but a few great minds have grasped, that the interchange of relations between the East and the West had been the life of the world. The greatness of England he understood to be largely due to her bestriding the two hemispheres.

Up to this moment he had been a theorist, and might have wasted his fine powers by further indulgence in dazzling generalizations, as so many boys do when not called to test their hypotheses by experience. Henceforward he was removed from this temptation. A plan for an elective council in Corsica to replace that of the nobles, and for a local militia, having been matured, he was a cautious and practical experimenter from the moment he left Auxonne. Thus far he had put into practice none of his fine thoughts, nor the lessons learned in books. The family destitution had made him a solicitor of favors, and, but for the turn in public affairs, he might have continued to be one. His own inclinations had made him both a good student and a poor officer; without a field for larger duties, he might have remained as he was. In Corsica his line of conduct was not changed abruptly: the possibilities of greater things dawning gradually, the application of great conceptions already formed, came with the march of events, not like the sun bursting out from behind a cloud.

Traveling by way of Aix, Napoleon took the unlucky Lucien with him. This wayward but independent younger brother, making no allowance, as he tells us in his published memoirs, for the disdain an older boy at school is supposed to feel for a younger one, blood relative or not, had been repelled by the cold reception his senior had given him at Brienne. Having left that school against the advice of the same would-be mentor, his suit for admission to Aix had been fruitless. Necessity was driving him homeward, and the two who in after days were again to be separated were now, for almost the only time in their lives, companions for a considerable period. Their intercourse made them no more harmonious in feeling. The only incident of the journey was a visit to the Abbé Raynal at Marseilles. We would gladly know something of the talk between the master and the pupil, but we do not.

Napoleon found no change in the circumstances of the Buonaparte family. The old archdeacon was still living, and for the moment all except Elisa were at home. On the whole, they were more needy than ever. The death of their patron, Marbeuf, had been followed by the final rejection of their long-urged suit, and this fact, combined with the political opinions of the elder Lucien, was beginning to wean them from the official clique. There were the same factions as before—the official party and the patriots. Since the death of Charles de Buonaparte, the former had been represented at Versailles by Buttafuoco, Choiseul's unworthy instrument in acquiring the island, and now, as then, an uninfluential and consequential self-seeker. Its members were all aristocrats and royalist in politics. The higher priesthood were of similar mind, and had chosen the Abbé Peretti to represent them; the parish priests, as in France, were with the people. Both the higher classes were comparatively small; in spite of twenty years of peace under French rule, they were both excessively unpopular, and utterly without any hold on the islanders. They had but one partizan with an influential name, a son of the old-time patriot Gaffori, the father-in-law of Buttafuoco. The overwhelming majority of the natives were little changed in their temper. There were the old, unswerving patriots who wanted absolute independence, and were now called Paolists; there were the self-styled patriots, the younger men, who wanted a protectorate that they might enjoy virtual independence and secure a career by peace. There was in the harbor towns on the eastern slope the same submissive, peace-loving temper as of old; in the west the same fiery, warlike spirit. Corte was the center of Paoli's power, Calvi was the seat of French influence, Bastia was radical, Ajaccio was about equally divided between the younger and older parties, with a strong infusion of official influence.

Both the representatives of the people in the national convention were of the moderate party; one of them, Salicetti, was a man of ability, a friend of the Buonapartes, and destined later to influence deeply the course of their affairs. He and his colleague Colonna were urging on the National Assembly measures for the local administration of the island. To this faction, as to the other, it had become clear that if Corsica was to reap the benefits of the new era it must be by union under Paoli. All, old and young alike, desired a thorough reform of their barbarous jurisprudence, and, like all other French subjects, a free press, free trade, the abolition of all privilege, equality in taxation, eligibility to office without regard to rank, and the diminution of monastic revenues for the benefit of education. Nowhere could such changes be more easily made than in a land just emerging from barbarism, where old institutions were disappearing and new ones were still fluid. Paoli himself had come to believe that independence could more easily be secured from a regenerated France, and with her help, than by a warfare which might again arouse the ambition of Genoa.

Buonaparte's natural associates were the younger men—Masseria, son of a patriot line; Pozzo di Borgo, Peraldi, Cuneo, Ramolini, and others less influential. The only Corsican with French military training, he was, in view of uncertainties and probabilities already on the horizon, a person of considerable consequence. His contribution to the schemes of the young patriots was significant: it consisted in a proposal to form a body of local militia for the support of that central committee which his friends so ardently desired. The plan was promptly adopted by the associates, the radicals seeing in it a means to put arms once more into the hands of the people, the others no doubt having in mind the storming of the Bastille and the possibility of similar movements in Ajaccio and elsewhere. Buonaparte, the only trained officer among them, may have dreamed of abandoning the French service, and of a supreme command in Corsica. Many of the people who appeared well disposed toward France had from time to time received permission from the authorities to carry arms, many carried them secretly and without a license; but proportionately there were so few in both classes that vigorous or successful armed resistance was in most places impracticable. The attitude of the department of war at Paris was regulated by Buttafuoco, and was of course hostile to the insidious scheme of a local militia. The minister of war would do nothing but submit the suggestion to the body against whose influence it was aimed, the hated council of twelve nobles. The stupid sarcasm of such a step was well-nigh criminal.

Under such instigation the flames of discontent broke out in Corsica. Paoli's agents were again most active. In many towns the people rose to attack the citadels or barracks, and to seize the authority. In Ajaccio Napoleon de Buonaparte promptly asserted himself as the natural leader. The already existing democratic club was rapidly organized into the nucleus of a home guard, and recruited in numbers. But there were none of Paoli's mountaineers to aid the unwarlike burghers, as there had been in Bastia. Gaffori appeared on the scene, but neither the magic of his name, the troops that accompanied him, nor the adverse representations of the council, which he brought with him, could allay the discontent. He therefore remained for three days in seclusion, and then departed in secret. On the other hand, the populace was intimidated, permitting without resistance the rooms of the club to be closed by the troops, and the town to be put under martial law. Nothing remained for the agitators but to protest and disperse. They held a final meeting, therefore, on October thirty-first, 1789, in one of the churches, and signed an appeal to the National Assembly, to be presented by Salicetti and Colonna. It had been written, and was read aloud, by Buonaparte, as he now signed himself.[19] Some share in its composition was later claimed for Joseph, but the fiery style, the numerous blunders in grammar and spelling, the terse thought, and the concise form, are all characteristic of Napoleon. The right of petition, the recital of unjust acts, the illegal action of the council, the use of force, the hollowness of the pretexts under which their request had been refused, the demand that the troops be withdrawn and redress granted—all these are crudely but forcibly presented. The document presages revolution. Under a well-constituted and regular authority, its writer and signatories would of course have been punished for insubordination. Even as things were, an officer of the King was running serious risks by his prominence in connection with it.

Discouraging as was the outcome of this movement in Ajaccio, similar agitations elsewhere were more successful. The men of Isola Rossa, under Arena, who had just returned from a consultation with Paoli in England, were entirely successful in seizing the supreme authority; so were those of Bastia, under Murati, a devoted friend of Paoli. One untrustworthy authority, a personal enemy of Buonaparte, declares that the latter, thwarted in his own town, at once went over to Bastia, then the residence of General de Barrin, the French royalist governor, and successfully directed the revolt in that place, but there is no corroborative evidence to this doubtful story.

Simultaneously with these events the National Assembly had been debating how the position of the King under the new constitution was to be expressed by his title. Absolutism being ended, he could no longer be king of France, a style which to men then living implied ownership. King of the French was selected as the new form; should they add "and of Navarre"? Salicetti, with consummate diplomacy, had already warned many of his fellow-delegates of the danger lest England should intervene in Corsica, and France lose one of her best recruiting-grounds. To his compatriots he set forth that France was the best protector, whether they desired partial or complete independence. He now suggested that if the Assembly thus recognized the separate identity of the Pyrenean people, they must supplement their phrase still further by the words "and of Corsica"; for it had been only nominally, and as a pledge, that Genoa in 1768 had put France in control. At this stage of the debate, Volney presented a number of formal demands from the Corsican patriots asking that the position of their country be defined. One of these papers certainly came from Bastia; among them also was probably the document which had been executed at Ajaccio. This was the culmination of the skilful revolutionary agitation which had been started and directed by Masseria under Paoli's guidance. The anomalous position of both Corsica and Navarre was clearly depicted in the mere presentation of such petitions. "If the Navarrese are not French, what have we to do with them, or they with us?" said Mirabeau. The argument was as unanswerable for one land as for the other, and both were incorporated in the realm: Corsica on November thirtieth, by a proposition of Salicetti's, who was apparently unwilling, but who posed as one under imperative necessity. In reality he had reached the goal for which he had long been striving. Dumouriez, later so renowned as a general, and Mirabeau, the great statesman and orator, had both been members of the French army of occupation which reduced Corsica to submission. The latter now recalled his misdeed with sorrow and shame in an impassioned plea for amnesty to all political offenders, including Paoli. There was bitter opposition, but the great orator prevailed.

The news was received in Corsica with every manifestation of joy; bonfires were lighted, and Te Deums were sung in the churches. Paoli to rejoin his own again! What more could disinterested patriots desire? Corsica a province of France! How could her aspiring youth secure a wider field for the exercise of their powers, and the attainment of ambitious ends? The desires of both parties were temporarily fulfilled. The names of Mirabeau, Salicetti, and Volney were shouted with acclaim, those of Buttafuoco and Peretti with reprobation. The regular troops were withdrawn from Ajaccio; the ascendancy of the liberals was complete.

Then feeble Genoa was heard once more. She had pledged the sovereignty, not sold it; had yielded its exercise, and not the thing itself; France might administer the government as she chose, but annexation was another matter. She appealed to the fairness of the King and the National Assembly to safeguard her treaty rights. Her tone was querulous, her words without force. In the Assembly the protest was but fuel to the fire. On January twenty-first, 1790, occurred an animated debate in which the matter was fully considered. The discussion was notable, as indicating the temper of parties and the nature of their action at that stage of the Revolution. Mirabeau as ever was the leader. He and his friends were scornful not only because of Genoa's temerity in seeming still to claim what France had conquered, but of her conception that mere paper contracts were binding where principles of public law were concerned! The opposition mildly but firmly recalled the existence of other nations than France, and suggested the consequences of international bad faith. The conclusion of the matter was the adoption of a cunning and insolent combination of two propositions, one made by each side, "to lay the request on the table, or to explain that there is no occasion for its consideration." The incident is otherwise important only in the light of Napoleon's future dealings with the Italian commonwealth.

The situation was now most delicate, as far as Buonaparte was concerned. His suggestion of a local militia contemplated the extension of the revolutionary movement to Corsica. His appeal to the National Assembly demanded merely the right to do what one French city or district after another had done: to establish local authority, to form a National Guard, and to unfurl the red, white, and blue. There was nothing in it about the incorporation of Corsica in France; that had come to pass through the insurgents of Bastia, who had been organized by Paoli, inspired by the attempt at Ajaccio, and guided at last by Salicetti. A little later Buonaparte took pains to set forth how much better, under his plan, would have been the situation of Corsican affairs if, with their guard organized and their colors mounted, they could have recalled Paoli, and have awaited the event with power either to reject such propositions as the royalists, if successful, would have made, or to accept the conclusions of the French Assembly with proper self-respect, and not on compulsion. Hitherto he had lost no opportunity to express his hatred of France; it is possible that he had planned the virtual independence of Corsica, with himself as the liberator, or at least as Paoli's Sampiero. The reservations of his Ajaccio document, and the bitterness of his feelings, are not, however, sufficient proof of such a presumption. But the incorporation had taken place, Corsica was a portion of France, and everybody was wild with delight.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER X.

First Lessons in Revolution.

French Soldier and Corsican Patriot — Paoli's Hesitancy — His Return to Corsica — Cross-Purposes in France — A New Furlough — Money Transactions of Napoleon and Joseph — Open Hostilities Against France — Address to the French Assembly — The Bastia Uprising — Reorganization of Corsican Administration — Meeting of Napoleon and Paoli — Corsican Politics — Studies in Society.

1790.

What was to be the future of one whose feelings were so hostile to the nation with the fortunes of which he now seemed irrevocably identified? There is no evidence that Buonaparte ever asked himself such disquieting questions. To judge from his conduct, he was not in the least troubled. Fully aware of the disorganization, both social and military, which was well-nigh universal in France, with two months more of his furlough yet unexpired, he awaited developments, not hastening to meet difficulties before they presented themselves. What the young democrats could do, they did. The town government was entirely reorganized, with a friend of the Buonapartes as mayor, and Joseph—employed at last!—as his secretary. A local guard was also raised and equipped. Being French, however, and not Corsican, Napoleon could not accept a command in it, for he was already an officer in the French army. But he served in the ranks as a common soldier, and was an ardent agitator in the club, which almost immediately reopened its doors. In the impossibility of further action there was a relapse into authorship. The history of Corsica was again revised, though not softened; the letters into which it was divided were addressed to Raynal. In collaboration with Fesch, Buonaparte also drew up a memoir on the oath which was required from priests.

When Paoli first received news of the amnesty granted at the instance of Mirabeau, and of the action taken by the French Assembly, which had made Corsica a French department, he was delighted and deeply moved. His noble instincts told him at once that he could no longer live in the enjoyment of an English pension or even in England; for he was convinced that his country would eventually reach a more perfect autonomy under France than under the wing of any other power, and that as a patriot he must not fail even in appearance to maintain that position. But he also felt that his return to Corsica would endanger the success of this policy; the ardent mountaineers would demand more extreme measures for complete independence than he could take; the lowlanders would be angry at the attitude of sympathy with his old friends which he must assume. In a spirit of self-sacrifice, therefore, he made ready to exchange his comfortable exile for one more uncongenial and of course more bitter.

But the National Assembly, with less insight, desired nothing so much as his presence in the new French department. He was growing old, and yielded against his better judgment to the united solicitation of French interest and of Corsican impolicy. Passing through France, he was detained for over two months by the ovations forced upon him. In Paris the King urged him to accept honors of every kind; but they were firmly refused: the reception, however, which the Assembly gave him in the name of liberty, he declared to be the proudest occasion of his life. At Lyons the populace crowded the streets to cheer him, and delegations from the chief towns of his native island met him to solicit for each of their respective cities the honor of his landing. On July fourteenth, 1790, after twenty-one years of exile, the now aged hero set foot on Corsican land at Maginajo, near Capo Corso. His first act was to kneel and kiss the soil. The nearest town was Bastia, the revolutionary capital. There and elsewhere the rejoicings were general, and the ceremonies were such as only the warm hearts and willing hands of a primitive Italian people could devise and perform. Not one true Corsican but must "see and hear and touch him." But in less than a month his conduct was, as he had foreseen, so misrepresented by friend and foe alike, that it was necessary to defend him in Paris against the charge of scheming to hand over the island to England.

It is not entirely clear where Buonaparte was during this time. It is said that he was seen in Valence during the latter part of January, and the fact is adduced to show how deep and secret were his plans for preserving the double chance of an opening in either France or Corsica, as matters might turn out. The love-affair to which he refers in that thesis on the topic to which reference has been made would be an equally satisfactory explanation, considering his age. Whatever was the fact as to those few days, he was not absent long. The serious division between the executive in France and the new Assembly came to light in an ugly circumstance which occurred in March. On the eighteenth a French flotilla unexpectedly appeared off St. Florent. It was commanded by Rully, an ardent royalist, who had long been employed in Corsica. His secret instructions were to embark the French troops, and to leave the island to its fate. This was an adroit stab at the republicans of the Assembly; for, should the evacuation be secured, it was believed that either the radicals in Corsica would rise, overpower, and destroy the friends of France, call in English help, and diminish the number of democratic departments by one, or that Genoa would immediately step in and reassert her sovereignty. The moderates of St. Florent were not to be thus duped; sharp and angry discussions arose among both citizens and troops as to the obedience due to such orders, and soon both soldiers and townsfolk were in a frenzy of excitement. A collision between the two parties occurred, and Rully was killed. Papers were found on his person which proved that his sympathizers would gladly have abandoned Corsica to its fate. For the moment the young Corsicans were more devoted than ever to Paoli, since now only through his good offices with the French Assembly could a chance for the success of their plans be secured.

Such was the diversity of opinion as to ways and means, as to resources, opportunities, and details, that everything was, for the moment, in confusion. On April sixteenth Buonaparte applied for an extension of his furlough until the following October, on the plea of continued ill-health, that he might drink the waters a second time at Orezza, whose springs, he explained, had shown themselves to be efficacious in his complaint. He may have been at that resort once before, or he may not. Doubtless the fever was still lingering in his system. What the degree of his illness was we cannot tell. It may have unfitted him for active service with his regiment; it did not disable him from pursuing his occupations in writing and political agitation. His request was granted on May twentieth. The history of Corsica was now finally revised, and the new dedication completed. This, with a letter and some chapters of the book, was forwarded to Raynal, probably by post. Joseph, who was one of the delegates to meet Paoli, would pass through Marseilles, wrote Napoleon to the abbé, and would hand him the rest if he should so desire. The text of the unlucky book was not materially altered. Its theory appears always to have been that history is but a succession of great names, and the story, therefore, is more a biographical record than a connected narrative. The dedication, however, was a new step in the painful progress of more accurate thinking and better expression; the additions to the volume contained, amid many immaturities and platitudes, some ripe and clever thought. Buonaparte's passion for his bantling was once more the ardor of a misdirected genius unsullied by the desire for money, which had played a temporary part.

We know nothing definite of his pecuniary affairs, but somehow or other his fortunes must have mended. There is no other explanation of his numerous and costly journeys, and we hear that for a time he had money in his purse. In the will which he dictated at St. Helena is a bequest of one hundred thousand francs to the children of his friend who was the first mayor of Ajaccio by the popular will. It is not unlikely that the legacy was a grateful souvenir of advances made about this time. There is another possible explanation. The club of Ajaccio had chosen a delegation, of which Joseph Buonaparte was a member, to bring Paoli home from France. To meet its expenses, the municipality had forced the authorities of the priests' seminary to open their strong box and to hand over upward of two thousand francs. Napoleon may have shared Joseph's portion. We should be reminded in such a stroke, but with a difference, to be sure, of what happened when, a few years later, the hungry and ragged soldiers of the Republic were led into the fat plains of Lombardy.

The contemptuous attitude of the Ajaccio liberals toward the religion of Rome seriously alienated the superstitious populace from them. Buonaparte was once attacked in the public square by a procession organized to deprecate the policy of the National Assembly with regard to the ecclesiastical estates. One of the few royalist officials left in Corsica also took advantage of the general disorder to express his feelings plainly as to the acts of the same body. He was arrested, tried in Ajaccio, and acquitted by a sympathetic judge. At once the liberals took alarm; their club and the officials first protested, and then on June twenty-fifth assumed the offensive in the name of the Assembly. It was on this occasion probably that he was seen by the family friend who narrated his memories to the English diarist already mentioned. "I remember to have seen Napoleon very active among the enraged populace against those then called aristocrats, and running through the streets of Ajaccio so busy in promoting dissatisfaction that, though he lost his hat, he did not feel nor care for the effects of the scorching sun to which he was exposed the whole of that memorable day. The revolution having struck its poisonous root, Napoleon never ceased stirring up his brothers, Joseph and Lucien, who, being moved at his instance, were constantly attending clubs and popular meetings where they often delivered speeches and debated public matters, while Napoleon sat listening in silence, as he had no turn for oratory." "One day in December," the narrator continues, "I was sent for by his uncle already mentioned, in order to assist him in preparing his testament; and, after having settled his family concerns, the conversation turned upon politics, when, speaking of the improbability of Italy being revolutionized, Napoleon, then present, quickly replied: 'Had I the command, I would take Italy in twenty-four hours.'"[20]

At last the opportunity to emulate the French cities seemed assured. It was determined to organize a local independent government, seize the citadel with the help of the home guard, and throw the hated royalists into prison. But the preparations were too open: the governor and most of his friends fled in season to their stronghold, and raised the drawbridge; the agitators could lay hands on but four of their enemies, among whom were the judge, the offender, and an officer of the garrison. So great was the disappointment of the radicals that they would have vented their spite on these; it was with difficulty that the lives of the prisoners were saved by the efforts of the militia officers. The garrison really sympathized with the insurgents, and would not obey orders to suppress the rising by an attack. In return for this forbearance the regular soldiers stipulated for the liberation of their officer. In the end the chief offenders among the radicals were punished by imprisonment or banished, and the tumult subsided; but the French officials now had strong support, not only from the hierarchy, as before, but from the plain pious people and their priests.

This result was a second defeat for Napoleon Buonaparte, who was almost certainly the instigator and leader of the uprising. He had been ready at any moment to assume the direction of affairs, but again the outcome of such a movement as could alone secure a possible temporary independence for Corsica and a military command for himself was absolutely naught. Little perturbed by failure, he took up the pen to write a proclamation justifying the action of the municipal authorities. The paper was dated October thirty-first, 1789, and fearlessly signed both by himself and the other leaders, including the mayor. It execrates the sympathizers with the old order in France, and lauds the Assembly, with all its works; denounces those who sold the land to France, which could offer nothing but an end of the chain that bound her; and warns the enemies of the new constitution that their day is over. There is a longing reference to the ideal self-determination which the previous attempt might have secured. The present rising is justified, however, as an effort to carry out the principles of the new charter.[21] There are the same suggested force and suppressed fury as in his previous manifesto, the same fervid rhetoric, the same lack of coherence in expression. The same two elements, that of the eighteenth-century metaphysics and that of his own uncultured force, combine in the composition. Naturally enough, the unrest of the town was not diminished; there was even a slight collision between the garrison and the civil authorities.

Buonaparte was of course suspected and hated by Catholics and military alike. French officer though he was, no one in Corsica thought of him otherwise than as a Corsican revolutionist. Among his own friends he continued his unswerving career. It was he who was chosen to write the address from Ajaccio to Paoli, although the two men did not meet until somewhat later. With the arrival of the great liberator the grasp of the old officials on the island relaxed, and the bluster of the few who had grown rich in the royal service ceased. The Assembly was finally triumphant; this new department was at last to be organized like those of the adoptive mother. It was high time, for the public order was seriously endangered in this transition period. The disturbances at Ajaccio had been trifling compared with the revolutionary procedure inaugurated and carried to extremes in Bastia. This city being the capital and residence of the governor, Buonaparte and his comrades had no sooner completed their address to the French Assembly than they hurried thither to beard de Barrin and revolutionize the garrison. Their success was complete: garrison and citizens alike were roused and the governor cowed. Both soldiers and people assumed the tricolor cockade on November fifth, 1789. Barrin even assented to the formation of a national militia. On this basis order was established. This was another affair from that at Ajaccio and attracted the attention of the Paris Assembly, strongly influencing the government in its arrangements with Paoli. The young Buonaparte was naturally very uneasy as to his position and so remained fairly quiet until February, when the incorporation of the island with France was completed. Immediately he gave free vent to his energies. Two letters of Napoleon's written in August, 1790, display a feverish spirit of unrest in himself, and enumerate the many uprisings in the neighborhood with their varying degrees of success. Under provisional authority, arrangements were made, after some delay, to hold elections for the officials of the new system whose legal designation was directors. Their appointment and conduct would be determinative of Corsica's future, and were therefore of the highest importance.

In a pure democracy the voters assemble to deliberate and record their decisions. Such were the local district meetings in Corsica. These chose the representatives to the central constituent assembly, which was to meet at Orezza on September ninth, 1790. Joseph Buonaparte and Fesch were among the members sent from Ajaccio. The healing waters which Napoleon wished to quaff at Orezza were the influence of the debates. Although he could not be a member of the assembly on account of his youth, he was determined to be present. The three relatives traveled from their home in company, Joseph enchanted by the scenery, Napoleon studying the strategic points on the way. In order that his presence at Orezza might not unduly affect the course of events, Paoli had delicately chosen as his temporary home the village of Rostino, which was on their route. Here occurred the meeting between the two great Corsicans, the man of ideas and the man of action. No doubt Paoli was anxious to win a family so important and a patriot so ardent. In any case, he invited the three young men to accompany him over the fatal battle-ground of Ponte Nuovo. If it had really been Napoleon's ambition to become the chief of the French National Guard for Corsica, which would now, in all probability, be fully organized, it is very likely that he would have exerted himself to secure the favor of the only man who could fulfil his desire. There is, however, a tradition which tends to show quite the contrary: it is said that after Paoli had pointed out the disposition of his troops for the fatal conflict Napoleon dryly remarked, "The result of these arrangements was just what it was bound to be." Among the Emperor's reminiscences at the close of his life, he recalled this meeting, because Paoli had on that occasion declared him to be a man of ancient mold, like one of Plutarch's heroes.

The constituent assembly at Orezza sat for a month. Its sessions passed almost without any incident of importance except the first appearance of Napoleon as an orator in various public meetings held in connection with its labors. He is said to have been bashful and embarrassed in his beginnings, but, inspirited by each occasion, to have become more fluent, and finally to have won the attention and applause of his hearers. What he said is not known, but he spoke in Italian, and succeeded in his design of being at least a personage in the pregnant events now occurring. Both parties were represented in the proceedings and conclusions of the convention. Corsica was to constitute but a single department. Paoli was elected president of its directory and commander-in-chief of its National Guard, a combination of offices which again made him virtual dictator. He accepted them unwillingly, but the honors of a statue and an annual grant of ten thousand dollars, which were voted at the same time, he absolutely declined. The Paolist party secured the election of Canon Belce as vice-president, of Panatheri as secretary, of Arena as Salicetti's substitute, of Pozzo di Borgo and Gentili as members of the directory. Colonna, one of the delegates to the National Assembly, was a member of the same group. The younger patriots, or Young Corsica, as we should say now, perhaps, were represented by their delegate and leader Salicetti, who was chosen as plenipotentiary in Buttafuoco's place, and by Multedo, Gentili, and Pompei as members of the directory. For the moment, however, Paoli was Corsica, and such petty politics was significant only as indicating the survival of counter-currents. There was some dissent to a vote of censure passed upon the conduct of Buttafuoco and Peretti, but it was insignificant. Pozzo di Borgo and Gentili were chosen to declare at the bar of the National Assembly the devotion of Corsica to its purposes, and to the course of reform as represented by it. They were also to secure, if possible, both the permission to form a departmental National Guard, and the means to pay and arm it.

The choice of Pozzo di Borgo for a mission of such importance in preference to Joseph was a disappointment to the Buonapartes. In fact, not one of the plans concerted by the two brothers succeeded. Joseph sustained the pretensions of Ajaccio to be capital of the island, but the honor was awarded to Bastia. He was not elected a member of the general directory, though he succeeded in being made a member for Ajaccio in the district directory. Whether to work off his ill humor, or from far-seeing purpose, Napoleon used the hours not spent in wire-pulling and listening to the proceedings of the assembly for making a series of excursions which were a virtual canvass of the neighborhood. The houses of the poorest were his resort; partly by his inborn power of pleasing, partly by diplomacy, he won their hearts and learned their inmost feelings. His purse, which was for the moment full, was open for their gratification in a way which moved them deeply. For years target practice had been forbidden, as giving dangerous skill in the use of arms. Liberty having returned, Napoleon reorganized many of the old rural festivals in which contests of that nature had been the chief feature, offering prizes from his own means for the best marksmen among the youth. His success in feeling the pulse of public opinion was so great that he never forgot the lesson. Not long afterward, in the neighborhood of Valence,—in fact, to the latest times,—he courted the society of the lowly, and established, when possible, a certain intimacy with them. This gave him popularity, while at the same time it enabled him to obtain the most valuable indications of the general temper.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER XI.

Traits of Character.

Literary Work — The Lyons Prize — Essay on Happiness — Thwarted Ambition — The Corsican Patriots — The Brothers Napoleon and Louis — Studies in Politics — Reorganization of the Army — The Change in Public Opinion — A New Leave of Absence — Napoleon Again at Auxonne — Napoleon as a Teacher — Further Literary Efforts — The Sentimental Journey — His Attitude Toward Religion.

1791.

On his return to Ajaccio, the rising agitator continued as before to frequent his club. The action of the convention at Orezza in displacing Buttafuoco had inflamed the young politicians still more against the renegade. This effect was further heightened when it was known that, at the reception of their delegates by the National Assembly, the greater council had, under Mirabeau's leadership, virtually taken the same position regarding both him and his colleague. Napoleon had written, probably in the previous year, a notorious diatribe against Buttafuoco in the form of a letter to its object and the very night on which the news from Paris was received, he seized the opportunity to read it before the club at Ajaccio. The paper, as now in existence, is pompously dated January twenty-third, 1791, from "my summer house of Milleli." This was the retreat on one of the little family properties, to which reference has been made. There in the rocks was a grotto known familiarly by that name; Napoleon had improved and beautified the spot, using it, as he did his garden at Brienne, for contemplation and quiet study. Although the letter to Matteo Buttafuoco has been often printed, and was its author's first successful effort in writing, much emphasis should not be laid on it except in noting the better power to express tumultuous feeling, and in marking the implications which show an expansion of character. Insubordinate to France it certainly is, and intemperate; turgid, too, as any youth of twenty could well make it. No doubt, also, it was intended to secure notoriety for the writer. It makes clear the thorough apprehension its author had as to the radical character of the Revolution. It is his final and public renunciation of the royalist principles of Charles de Buonaparte. It contains also the last profession of morality which a youth is not ashamed to make before the cynicism of his own life becomes too evident for the castigation of selfishness and insincerity in others. Its substance is a just reproach to a selfish trimmer; the froth and scum are characteristic rather of the time and the circumstances than of the personality behind them. There is no further mention of a difference between the destinies of France and Corsica. To compare the pamphlet with even the poorest work of Rousseau, as has often been done, is absurd; to vilify it as ineffective trash is equally so.

As may be imagined, the "Letter" was received with mad applause, and ordered to be printed. It was now the close of January; Buonaparte's leave had expired on October fifteenth. On November sixteenth, after loitering a whole month beyond his time, he had secured a document from the Ajaccio officials certifying that both he and Louis were devoted to the new republican order, and bespeaking assistance for both in any difficulties which might arise. The busy Corsican perfectly understood that he might already at that time be regarded as a deserter in France, but still he continued his dangerous loitering. He had two objects in view, one literary, one political. Besides the successful "Letter" he had been occupied with a second composition, the notion of which had probably occupied him as his purse grew leaner. The jury before which this was to be laid was to be, however, not a heated body of young political agitators, but an association of old and mature men with calm, critical minds—the Lyons Academy. That society was finally about to award a prize of fifteen hundred livres founded by Raynal long before—as early as 1780—for the best thesis on the question: "Has the discovery of America been useful or hurtful to the human race? If the former, how shall we best preserve and increase the benefits? If the latter, how shall we remedy the evils?" Americans must regret that the learned body had been compelled for lack of interest in so concrete a subject to change the theme, and now offered in its place the question: "What truths and ideas should be inculcated in order best to promote the happiness of mankind?"

Napoleon's astounding paper on this remarkable theme was finished in December. It bears the marks of carelessness, haste, and over-confidence in every direction—in style, in content, and in lack of accuracy. "Illustrious Raynal," writes the author, "the question I am about to discuss is worthy of your steel, but without assuming to be metal of the same temper, I have taken courage, saying to myself with Correggio, I, too, am a painter." Thereupon follows a long encomium upon Paoli, whose principal merit is explained to have been that he strove in his legislation to keep for every man a property sufficient with moderate exertion on his own part for the sustenance of life. Happiness consists in living conformably to the constitution of our organization. Wealth is a misfortune, primogeniture a relic of barbarism, celibacy a reprehensible practice. Our animal nature demands food, shelter, clothing, and the companionship of woman. These are the essentials of happiness; but for its perfection we require both reason and sentiment. These theses are the tolerable portions, being discussed with some coherence. But much of the essay is mere meaningless rhetoric and bombast, which sounds like the effusion of a boyish rhapsodist. "At the sound of your [reason's] voice let the enemies of nature be still, and swallow their serpents' tongues in rage." "The eyes of reason restrain mankind from the precipice of the passions, as her decrees modify likewise the feeling of their rights." Many other passages of equal absurdity could be quoted, full of far-fetched metaphor, abounding in strange terms, straining rhetorical figures to distortion.[22] And yet in spite of the bombast, certain essential Napoleonic ideas appear in the paper much as they endured to the end, namely, those on heredity, on the equal division of property, and on the nature of civil society. And there is one prophetic sentence which deserves to be quoted. "A disordered imagination! there lies the cause and source of human misfortune. It sends us wandering from sea to sea, from fancy to fancy, and when at last it grows calm, opportunity has passed, the hour strikes, and its possessor dies abhorring life." In later days the author threw what he probably supposed was the only existing manuscript of this vaporing effusion into the fire. But a copy of it had been made at Lyons, perhaps because one of the judges thought, as he said, that it "might have been written by a man otherwise gifted with common sense." Another has been found among the papers confided by Napoleon to Fesch. The proofs of authenticity are complete. It seems miraculous that its writer should have become, as he did, master of a concise and nervous style when once his words became the complement of his deeds.

The second cause for Buonaparte's delay in returning to France on the expiration of his furlough was his political and military ambition. This was suddenly quenched by the receipt of news that the Assembly at Paris would not create the longed-for National Guard, nor the ministry lend itself to any plan for circumventing the law. It was, therefore, evident that every chance of becoming Paoli's lieutenant was finally gone. By the advice of the president himself, therefore, Buonaparte determined to withdraw once more to France and to await results. Corsica was still distracted. A French official sent by the war department just at this time to report on its condition is not sparing of the language he uses to denounce the independent feeling and anti-French sympathies of the people. "The Italian," he says, "acquiesces, but does not forgive; an ambitious man keeps no faith, and estimates his life by his power." The agent further describes the Corsicans as so accustomed to unrest by forty years of anarchy that they would gladly seize the first occasion to throw off the domination of laws which restrain the social disorder. The Buonaparte faction, enumerated with the patriot brigand Zampaglini at their head, he calls "despicable creatures," "ruined in reputation and credit."

It would be hard to find a higher compliment to Paoli and his friends, considering the source from which these words emanated. They were all poor and they were all in debt. Even now, in the age of reform, they saw their most cherished plans thwarted by the presence in every town of garrisons composed of officers and men who, though long resident in the island, and attached to its people by many ties, were nevertheless conservative in their feelings, and, by the instinct of their tradition and discipline, devoted to the still powerful official bureaus not yet destroyed by the Revolution. To replace these by a well-organized and equipped National Guard was now the most ardent wish of all patriots. There was nothing unworthy in Napoleon's longing for a command under the much desired but ever elusive reconstitution of a force organized and armed according to the model furnished by France itself. Repeated disappointments like those he had suffered before, and was experiencing again, would have crushed the spirit of a common man.

But the young author had his manuscripts in his pocket; one of them he had means and authority to publish. Perfectly aware, moreover, of the disorganization in the nation and the army, careless of the order fulminated on December second, 1790, against absent officers, which he knew to be aimed especially at the young nobles who were deserting in troops, with his spirit undaunted, and his brain full of resources, he left Ajaccio on February first, 1791, having secured a new set of certificates as to his patriotism and devotion to the cause of the Revolution. Like the good son and the good brother which he had always been, he was not forgetful of his family. Life at his home had not become easier. Joseph, to be sure, had an office and a career, but the younger children were becoming a source of expense, and Lucien would not accept the provision which had been made for him. The next, now ready to be educated and placed, was Louis, a boy already between twelve and thirteen years old; accordingly Louis accompanied his brother. Napoleon had no promise, not even an outlook, for the child; but he determined to have him at hand in case anything should turn up, and while waiting, to give him from his own slender means whatever precarious education the times and circumstances could afford. We can understand the untroubled confidence of the boy; we must admire the trust, determination, and self-reliance of the elder brother.

Though he had overrun his leave for three and a half months, there was not only no severe punishment in store for Napoleon on his arrival at Auxonne, but there was considerate regard, and, later, promotion. Officers with military training and loyal to the Assembly were becoming scarce. The brothers had traveled slowly, stopping first for a short time at Marseilles, and then at Aix to visit friends, wandering several days in a leisurely way through the parts of Dauphiny round about Valence. Associating again with the country people, and forming opinions as to the course of affairs, Buonaparte reopened his correspondence with Fesch on February eighth from the hamlet of Serve in order to acquaint him with the news and the prospects of the country, describing in particular the formation of patriotic societies by all the towns to act in concert for carrying out the decrees of the Assembly.[23] This beginning of "federation for the Revolution," as it was called, in its spread finally welded the whole country, civil and even military authorities, together. Napoleon's presence in the time and place of its beginning explains much that followed. It was February thirteenth when he rejoined his regiment.

Comparatively short as had been the time of Buonaparte's absence, everything in France, even the army, had changed and was still changing. Step by step the most wholesome reforms were introduced as each in turn showed itself essential: promotion exclusively according to service among the lower officers; the same, with room for royal discretion, among the higher grades; division of the forces into regulars, reserves, and national guards, the two former to be still recruited by voluntary enlistment. The ancient and privileged constabulary, and many other formerly existing but inefficient armed bodies, were swept away, and the present system of gendarmerie was created. The military courts, too, were reconstituted under an impartial body of martial law. Simple numbers were substituted for the titular distinctions hitherto used by the regiments, and a fair schedule of pay, pensions, and military honors abolished all chance for undue favoritism. The necessity of compulsory enlistment was urged by a few with all the energy of powerful conviction, but the plan was dismissed as despotic. The Assembly debated as to whether, under the new system, king or people should wield the military power. They could find no satisfactory solution, and finally adopted a weak compromise which went far to destroy the power of Mirabeau, because carried through by him. The entire work of the commission was temporarily rendered worthless by these two essential defects—there was no way of filling the ranks, no strong arm to direct the system.

The first year of trial, 1790, had given the disastrous proof. By this time all monarchical and absolutist Europe was awakened against France; only a mere handful of enthusiastic men in England and America, still fewer elsewhere, were in sympathy with her efforts. The stolid common sense of the rest saw only ruin ahead, and viewed askance the idealism of her unreal subtleties. The French nobles, sickened by the thought of reform, had continued their silly and wicked flight; the neighboring powers, now preparing for an armed resistance to the spread of the Revolution, were not slow to abet them in their schemes. On every border agencies for the encouragement of desertion were established, and by the opening of 1791 the effective fighting force of France was more than decimated. There was no longer any question of discipline; it was enough if any person worthy to command or serve could be retained. But the remedy for this disorganization was at hand. In the letter to Fesch, to which reference has already been made, Napoleon, after his observations among the people, wrote: "I have everywhere found the peasants firm in their stirrups [steadfast in their opinions], especially in Dauphiny. They are all disposed to perish in support of the constitution. I saw at Valence a resolute people, patriotic soldiers, and aristocratic officers. There are, however, some exceptions, for the president of the club is a captain named du Cerbeau. He is captain in the regiment of Forez in garrison at Valence.... The women are everywhere royalist. It is not amazing; Liberty is a prettier woman than they, and eclipses them. All the parish priests of Dauphiny have taken the civic oath; they make sport of the bishop's outcry.... What is called good society is three fourths aristocratic—that is, they disguise themselves as admirers of the English constitution."

What a concise, terse sketch of that rising tide of national feeling which was soon to make good all defects and to fill all gaps in the new military system, put the army as part of the nation under the popular assembly, knit regulars, reserves, and home guard into one, and give moral support to enforcing the proposal for compulsory enlistment!

This movement was Buonaparte's opportunity. Declaring that he had twice endeavored since the expiration of his extended furlough to cross into France, he produced certificates to that effect from the authorities of Ajaccio, and begged for his pay and allowances since that date. His request was granted. It is impossible to deny the truth of his statement, or the genuineness of his certificates. But both were loose perversions of a half-truth, shifts palliated by the uncertainties of a revolutionary epoch. A habitual casuistry is further shown in an interesting letter written at the same time to M. James, a business friend of Joseph's at Châlons, in which there occurs a passage of double meaning, to the effect that his elder brother "hopes to come in person the following year as deputy to the National Assembly," which was no doubt true; for, in spite of being incapacitated by age, he had already sat in the Corsican convention and in the Ajaccio councils. But the imperfect French of the passage could also mean, and, casually read, does carry the idea, that Joseph, being already a deputy, would visit his friend the following year in person.

Buonaparte's connection with his old regiment was soon to be broken. He joined it on February thirteenth; he left it on June fourteenth. With these four months his total service was five years and nine months; but he had been absent, with or without leave, something more than half the time! His old friends in Auxonne were few in number, if indeed there were any at all. No doubt his fellow-officers were tired of performing the absentee's duties, and of good-fellowship there could be in any case but little, with such difference of taste, politics, and fortune as there was between him and them. However, he made a few new friends; but it was in the main the old solitary life which he resumed. His own room was in a cheap lodging-house, and, according to the testimony of a visitor, furnished with a wretched uncurtained couch, a table, and two chairs. Louis slept on a pallet in a closet near by. All pleasures but those of hope were utterly banished from those plucky lives, while they studied in preparation for the examination which might admit the younger to his brother's corps. The elder pinched and scraped to pay the younger's board; himself, according to a probable but rather untrustworthy account, brushing his own clothes that they might last longer, and supping often on dry bread. His only place of resort was the political club. One single pleasure he allowed himself—the occasional purchase of some long-coveted volume from the shelves of a town bookseller.[24]

Of course neither authorship nor publication was forgotten. During these months were completed the two short pieces, a "Dialogue on Love," and the acute "Reflections on the State of Nature," from both of which quotations have already been given. "I too was once in love," he says of himself in the former. It could not well have been in Ajaccio, and it must have been the memories of the old Valence, of a pleasant existence now ended, which called forth the doleful confession. It was the future Napoleon who was presaged in the antithesis. "I go further than the denial of its existence; I believe it hurtful to society, to the individual welfare of men." The other trenchant document demolishes the cherished hypothesis of Rousseau as to man in a state of nature. The precious manuscripts brought from Corsica were sent to the only publisher in the neighborhood, at Dôle. The much-revised history was refused; the other—whether by moneys furnished from the Ajaccio club, or at the author's risk, is not known—was printed in a slim octavo volume of twenty-one pages, and published with the title, "Letter of Buonaparte to Buttafuoco." A copy was at once sent to Paoli with a renewed request for such documents as would enable the writer to complete his pamphlet on Corsica. The patriot again replied in a very discouraging tone: Buttafuoco was too contemptible for notice, the desired papers he was unable to send, and such a boy could not in any case be a historian. Buonaparte was undismayed and continued his researches. Joseph was persuaded to add his solicitations for the desired papers to those of his brother, but he too received a flat refusal.

Short as was Buonaparte's residence at Auxonne, he availed himself to the utmost of the slackness of discipline in order to gratify his curiosity as to the state of the country. He paid frequent visits to Marmont in Dijon, and he made what he called at St. Helena his "Sentimental Journey to Nuits" in Burgundy. The account he gave Las Cases of the aristocracy in the little city, and of its assemblies at the mansion of a wine-merchant's widow, is most entertaining. To his host Gassendi and to the worthy mayor he aired his radical doctrines with great complacence, but according to his own account he had not the best of it in the discussions which ensued. Under the empire Gassendi's son was a member of the council of state, and in one of its sessions he dared to support some of his opinions by quoting Napoleon himself. The Emperor remembered perfectly the conversation at Nuits, but meaningly said that his friend must have been asleep and dreaming.

Several traditions which throw some light on Buonaparte's attitude toward religion date from this last residence in Auxonne. He had been prepared for confirmation at Brienne by a confessor who was now in retirement at Dôle, the same to whom when First Consul he wrote an acknowledgment of his indebtedness, adding: "Without religion there is no happiness, no future possible. I commend me to your prayers." The dwelling of this good man was the frequent goal of his walks abroad. Again, he once jocularly asked a friend who visited him in his room, if he had heard mass that morning, opening, as he spoke, a trunk, in which was the complete vestment of a priest. The regimental chaplain, who must have been his friend, had confided it to him for safe-keeping. Finally, it was in these dark and never-forgotten days of trial that Louis was confirmed, probably by the advice of his brother. Even though Napoleon had collaborated with Fesch in the paper on the oath of priests to the constitution, though he himself had been mobbed in Corsica as the enemy of the Church, it does not appear that he had any other than decent and reverent feelings toward religion and its professors.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER XII.

The Revolution in the Rhone Valley.

A Dark Period — Buonaparte, First Lieutenant — Second Sojourn in Valence — Books and Reading — The National Assembly of France — The King Returns from Versailles — Administrative Reforms in France — Passing of the Old Order — Flight of the King — Buonaparte's Oath to Sustain the Constitution — His View of the Situation — His Revolutionary Zeal — Insubordination — Impatience with Delay — A Serious Blunder Avoided — Return to Corsica.

1791.

The tortuous course of Napoleon's life for the years from 1791 to 1795 has been neither described nor understood by those who have written in his interest. It was his own desire that his biographies, in spite of the fact that his public life began after Rivoli, should commence with the recovery of Toulon for the Convention. His detractors, on the other hand, have studied this prefatory period with such evident bias that dispassionate readers have been repelled from its consideration. And yet the sordid tale well repays perusal; for in this epoch of his life many of his characteristic qualities were tempered and ground to the keen edge they retained throughout. Swept onward toward the trackless ocean of political chaos, the youth seemed afloat without oars or compass: in reality, his craft was well under control, and his chart correct. Whether we attribute his conduct to accident or to design, from an adventurer's point of view the instinct which made him spread his sails to the breezes of Jacobin favor was quite as sound as that which later, when Jacobinism came to be abhorred, made him anxious that the fact should be forgotten.

In the earlier stages of army reorganization, changes were made without much regard to personal merit, the dearth of efficient officers being such that even the most indifferent had some value. About the first of June, 1791, Buonaparte was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant, with a salary of thirteen hundred livres, and transferred to the Fourth Regiment, which was in Valence. He heard the news with mingled feelings: promotion was, of course, welcome, but he shrank from returning to his former station, and from leaving the three or four warm friends he had among his comrades in the old regiment. On the ground that the arrangements he had made for educating Louis would be disturbed by the transfer, he besought the war office for permission to remain at Auxonne with the regiment, now known as the First. Probably the real ground of his disinclination was the fear that a residence at Valence might revive the painful emotions which time had somewhat withered. He may also have felt how discordant the radical opinions he was beginning to hold would be with those still cherished by his former friends. But the authorities were inexorable, and on June fourteenth the brothers departed, Napoleon for the first time leaving debts which he could not discharge: for the new uniform of a first lieutenant, a sword, and some wood, he owed about a hundred and fifteen livres. This sum he was careful to pay within a few years and as soon as his affairs permitted.

Arrived at Valence, he found that the old society had vanished. Both the bishop and the Abbé Saint-Ruf were dead. Mme. du Colombier had withdrawn with her daughter to her country-seat. The brothers were able, therefore, to take up their lives just where they had made the break at Auxonne: Louis pursuing the studies necessary for entrance to the corps of officers, Napoleon teaching him, and frequenting the political club; both destitute and probably suffering, for the officer's pay was soon far in arrears. In such desperate straits it was a relief for the elder brother that the allurements of his former associations were dissipated; such companionship as he now had was among the middle and lower classes, whose estates were more proportionate to his own, and whose sentiments were virtually identical with those which he professed.

The list of books which he read is significant: Coxe's "Travels in Switzerland," Duclos's "Memoirs of the Reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV," Machiavelli's "History of Florence," Voltaire's "Essay on Manners," Duvernet's "History of the Sorbonne," Le Noble's "Spirit of Gerson," and Dulaure's "History of the Nobility." There exist among his papers outlines more or less complete of all these books. They prove that he understood what he read, but unlike other similar jottings by him they give little evidence of critical power. Aside from such historical studies as would explain the events preliminary to that revolutionary age upon which he saw that France was entering, he was carefully examining the attitude of the Gallican Church toward the claims of the papacy, and considering the rôle of the aristocracy in society. It is clear that he had no intention of being merely a curious onlooker at the successive phases of the political and social transmutation already beginning; he was bent on examining causes, comprehending reasons, and sharing in the movement itself.

By the summer of 1791 the first stage in the transformation of France had almost passed. The reign of moderation in reform was nearly over. The National Assembly had apprehended the magnitude but not the nature of its task, and was unable to grasp the consequences of the new constitution it had outlined. The nation was sufficiently familiar with the idea of the crown as an executive, but hitherto the executive had been at the same time legislator; neither King nor people quite knew how the King was to obey the nation when the former, trained in the school of the strictest absolutism, was deprived of all volition, and the latter gave its orders through a single chamber, responsive to the levity of the masses, and controlled neither by an absolute veto power, nor by any feeling of responsibility to a calm public opinion. This was the urgent problem which had to be solved under conditions the most unfavorable that could be conceived.

During the autumn of 1789 famine was actually stalking abroad. The Parisian populace grew gaunt and dismal, but the King and aristocracy at Versailles had food in plenty, and the contrast was heightened by a lavish display in the palace. The royal family was betrayed by one of its own house, the despicable Philip "Égalité," who sought to stir up the basest dregs of society, that in the ferment he might rise to the top; hungry Paris, stung to action by rumors which he spread and by bribes which he lavished, put Lafayette at its head, and on October fifth marched out to the gates of the royal residence in order to make conspicuous the contrast between its own sufferings and the wasteful comfort of its servants, as the King and his ministers were now considered to be. Louis and the National Assembly yielded to the menace, the court returned to Paris, politics grew hotter and more bitter, the fickleness of the mob became a stronger influence. Soon the Jacobin Club began to wield the mightiest single influence, and as it did so it grew more and more radical.

Throughout the long and trying winter the masses remained, nevertheless, quietly expectant. There was much tumultuous talk, but action was suspended while the Assembly sat and struggled to solve its problem, elaborating a really fine paper constitution. Unfortunately, the provisions of the document had no relation to the political habits of the French nation, or to the experience of England and the United States, the only free governments then in existence. Feudal privilege, feudal provinces, feudal names having been obliterated, the whole of France was rearranged into administrative departments, with geographical in place of historical boundaries. It was felt that the ecclesiastical domains, the holders of which were considered as mere trustees, should be adapted to the same plan, and this was done. Ecclesiastical as well as aristocratic control was thus removed by the stroke of a pen. In other words, by the destruction of the mechanism through which the temporal and spiritual authorities exerted the remnants of their power, they were both completely paralyzed. The King was denied all initiative, being granted merely a suspensive veto, and in the reform of the judicial system the prestige of the lawyers was also destroyed. Royalty was turned into a function, and the courts were stripped of both the moral and physical force necessary to compel obedience to their decrees. Every form of the guardianship to which for centuries the people had been accustomed was thus removed—royal, aristocratic, ecclesiastical, and judicial. Untrained to self-control, they were as ready for mad excesses as were the German Anabaptists after the Reformation or the English sectaries after the execution of Charles.

Attention has been called to the disturbances which arose in Auxonne and elsewhere, to the emigration of the nobles from that quarter, to the utter break between the parish priests and the higher church functionaries in Dauphiny; this was but a sample of the whole. When, on July fourteenth, 1790, the King accepted a constitution which decreed a secular reorganization of the ecclesiastical hierarchy according to the terms of which both bishops and priests were to be elected by the taxpayers, two thirds of all the clergy in France refused to swear allegiance to it. All attempts to establish the new administrative and judicial systems were more or less futile; the disaffection of officials and lawyers became more intense. In Paris alone the changes were introduced with some success, the municipality being rearranged into forty-eight sections, each with a primary assembly. These were the bodies which later gave Buonaparte the opening whereby he entered his real career. The influence of the Jacobin Club increased, just in proportion as the majority of its members grew more radical. Necker trimmed to their demands, but lost popularity by his monotonous calls for money, and fell in September, reaching his home on Lake Leman only with the greatest difficulty. Mirabeau succeeded him as the sole possible prop to the tottering throne. Under his leadership the moderate monarchists, or Feuillants, as they were later called, from the convent of that order to which they withdrew, seceded from the Jacobins, and before the Assembly had ceased its work the nation was cleft in two, divided into opponents and adherents of monarchy. As if to insure the disasters of such an antagonism, the Assembly, which numbered among its members every man in France of ripe political experience, committed the incredible folly of self-effacement, voting that not one of its members should be eligible to the legislature about to be chosen.

A new impulse to the revolutionary movement was given by the death of Mirabeau on April second, 1791. His obsequies were celebrated in many places, and, being a native of Provence, there were probably solemn ceremonies at Valence. There is a tradition that they occurred during Buonaparte's second residence in the city, and that it was he who superintended the draping of the choir in the principal church. It is said that the hangings were arranged to represent a funerary urn, and that beneath, in conspicuous letters, ran the legend: "Behold what remains of the French Lycurgus." Mirabeau had indeed displayed a genius for politics, his scheme for a strong ministry, chosen from the Assembly, standing in bold relief against the feebleness of Necker in persuading Louis to accept the suspensive veto, and to choose his cabinet without relation to the party in power. When the mad dissipation of the statesman's youth demanded its penalty at the hour so critical for France, the King and the moderates alike lost courage. In June the worried and worn-out monarch determined that the game was not worth the playing, and on the twenty-first he fled. Though he was captured, and brought back to act the impossible rôle of a democratic prince, the patriots who had wished to advance with experience and tradition as guides were utterly discredited. All the world could see how pusillanimous was the royalty they had wished to preserve, and the masses made up their mind that, real or nominal, the institution was not only useless, but dangerous. This feeling was strong in the Rhone valley and the adjoining districts, which have ever been the home of extreme radicalism. Sympathy with Corsica and the Corsicans had long been active in southeastern France. Neither the island nor its people were felt to be strange. When a society for the defense of the constitution was formed in Valence, Buonaparte, though a Corsican, was at first secretary, then president, of the association.

The "Friends of the Constitution" grew daily more numerous, more powerful, and more radical in that city; and when the great solemnity of swearing allegiance to the new order was to be celebrated, it was chosen as a convenient and suitable place for a convention of twenty-two similar associations from the neighboring districts. The meeting took place on July third, 1791; the official administration of the oath to the civil, military, judicial, and ecclesiastical authorities occurred on the fourteenth. Before a vast altar erected on the drill-ground, in the presence of all the dignitaries, with cannon booming and the air resounding with shouts and patriotic songs, the officials in groups, the people in mass, swore with uplifted hands to sustain the constitution, to obey the National Assembly, and to die, if need be, in defending French territory against invasion. Scenes as impressive and dramatic as this occurred all over France. They appealed powerfully to the imagination of the nation, and profoundly influenced public opinion. "Until then," said Buonaparte, referring to the solemnity, "I doubt not that if I had received orders to turn my guns against the people, habit, prejudice, education, and the King's name would have induced me to obey. With the taking of the national oath it became otherwise; my instincts and my duty were thenceforth in harmony."

But the position of liberal officers was still most trying. In the streets and among the people they were in a congenial atmosphere; behind the closed doors of the drawing-rooms, in the society of ladies, and among their fellows in the mess, there were constraint and suspicion. Out of doors all was exultation; in the houses of the hitherto privileged classes all was sadness and uncertainty. But everywhere, indoors or out, was spreading the fear of war, if not civil at least foreign war, with the French emigrants as the allies of the assailants. On this point Buonaparte was mistaken. As late as July twenty-seventh, 1791, he wrote to Naudin, an intimate friend who was chief of the military bureau at Auxonne: "Will there be war? No; Europe is divided between sovereigns who rule over men and those who rule over cattle and horses. The former understand the Revolution, and are terrified; they would gladly make personal sacrifices to annihilate it, but they dare not lift the mask for fear the fire should break out in their own houses. See the history of England, Holland, etc. Those who bear the rule over horses misunderstand and cannot grasp the bearing of the constitution. They think this chaos of incoherent ideas means an end of French power. You would suppose, to listen to them, that our brave patriots were about to cut one another's throats and with their blood purge the land of the crimes committed against kings." The news contained in this letter is most interesting. There are accounts of the zeal and spirit everywhere shown by the democratic patriots, of a petition for the trial of the King sent up from the recent meeting at Valence, and an assurance by the writer that his regiment is "sure," except as to half the officers. He adds in a postscript: "The southern blood courses in my veins as swiftly as the Rhone. Pardon me if you feel distressed in reading my scrawl."[25]

Restlessness is the habit of the agitator, and Buonaparte's temperament was not exceptional. His movements and purposes during the months of July and August are very uncertain in the absence of documentary evidence sufficient to determine them. But his earliest biographers, following what was in their time a comparatively short tradition, enable us to fix some things with a high degree of probability. The young radical had been but two months with his new command when he began to long for change; the fever of excitement and the discomfort of his life, with probably some inkling that a Corsican national guard would ere long be organized, awakened in him a purpose to be off once more, and accordingly he applied for leave of absence. His colonel, a very lukewarm constitutionalist, angry at the notoriety which his lieutenant was acquiring, had already sent in a complaint of Buonaparte's insubordinate spirit and of his inattention to duty. Standing on a formal right, he therefore refused the application. With the quick resource of a schemer, Buonaparte turned to a higher authority, his friend Duteil, who was inspector-general of artillery in the department and not unfavorable. Something, however, must have occurred to cause delay, for weeks passed and the desired leave was not granted.

While awaiting a decision the applicant was very uneasy. To friends he said that he would soon be in Paris; to his great-uncle he wrote, "Send me three hundred livres; that sum would take me to Paris. There, at least, a person can show himself, overcome obstacles. Everything tells me that I shall succeed there. Will you stop me for lack of a hundred crowns?" And again: "I am waiting impatiently for the six crowns my mother owes me; I need them sadly." These demands for money met with no response. The explanation of Buonaparte's impatience is simple enough. One by one the provincial societies which had been formed to support the constitution were affiliating themselves with the influential Jacobins at Paris, who were now the strongest single political power in the country. He was the recognized leader of their sympathizers in the Rhone valley. He evidently intended to go to headquarters and see for himself what the outlook was. With backers such as he thus hoped to find, some advantage, perhaps even the long-desired command in Corsica, might be secured.

It was rare good fortune that the young hotspur was not yet to be cast into the seething caldron of French politics. The time was not yet ripe for the exercise of his powers. The storming of the Bastille had symbolized the overthrow of privilege and absolute monarchy; the flight of the King presaged the overthrow of monarchy, absolute or otherwise. The executive gone, the legislature popular and democratic but ignorant how to administer or conduct affairs, the judiciary equally disorganized, and the army transforming itself into a patriotic organization—was there more to come? Yes. Thus far, in spite of well-meant attempts to substitute new constructions for the old, all had been disintegration. French society was to be reorganized only after further pulverizing; cohesion would begin only under pressure from without—a pressure applied by the threats of erratic royalists that they would bring in the foreign powers to coerce and arbitrate, by the active demonstrations of the emigrants, by the outbreak of foreign wars. These were the events about to take place; they would in the end evolve from the chaos of mob rule first the irregular and temporary dictatorship of the Convention, then the tyranny of the Directory; at the same time they would infuse a fervor of patriotism, into the whole mass of the French nation, stunned, helpless, and leaderless, but loyal, brave, and vigorous. In such a crisis the people would tolerate, if not demand, a leader strong to exact respect for France and to enforce his commands; would prefer the vigorous mastery of one to the feeble misrule of the many or the few. Still further, the man was as unready as the time; for it was, in all probability, not as a Frenchman but as an ever true Corsican patriot that Buonaparte wished to "show himself, overcome obstacles" at this conjuncture.

On August fourth, 1791, the National Assembly at last decided to form a paid volunteer national guard of a hundred thousand men, and their decision became a law on August twelfth. The term of enlistment was a year; four battalions were to be raised in Corsica. Buonaparte heard of the decision on August tenth, and was convinced that the hour for realizing his long-cherished aspirations had finally struck. He could certainly have done much in Paris to secure office in a French-Corsican national guard, and with this in mind he immediately wrote a memorandum on the armament of the new force, addressing it, with characteristic assurance, to the minister of war. When, however, three weeks later, on August thirtieth, 1791, a leave of absence arrived, to which he was entitled in the course of routine, and which was not granted by the favor of any one, he had abandoned all idea of service under France in the Corsican guard. The disorder of the times was such that while retaining office in the French army he could test in an independent Corsican command the possibility of climbing to leadership there before abandoning his present subordinate place in France. In view, apparently, of this new venture, he had for some time been taking advances from the regimental paymaster, until he had now in hand a considerable sum—two hundred and ninety livres. A formal announcement to the authorities might have elicited embarrassing questions from them, so he and Louis quietly departed without explanations, leaving for the second time debts of considerable amount. They reached Ajaccio on September sixth, 1791. Napoleon was not actually a deserter, but he had in contemplation a step toward the defiance of French authority—the acceptance of service in a Corsican military force.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER XIII.

Buonaparte the Corsican Jacobin.

Buonaparte's Corsican Patriotism — His Position in His Family — The Situation of Joseph — Corsican Politics — Napoleon's Power in the Jacobin Club of Ajaccio — His Failure as a Contestant for Literary Honors — Appointed Adjutant-General — His Attitude Toward France — His New Ambitions — Use of Violence — Lieutenant-Colonel of Volunteers — Politics in Ajaccio — His First Experience of Street Warfare — His Manifesto — Dismissed to Paris — His Plans — The Position of Louis XVI — Buonaparte's Delinquencies — Disorganization in the Army — Petition for Reinstatement — The Marseillais — Buonaparte a Spectator — His Estimate of France — His Presence at the Scenes of August Tenth — State of Paris — Flight of Lafayette.

1791-92.

This was the third time in four years that Buonaparte had revisited his home.[26] On the plea of ill health he had been able the first time to remain a year and two months, giving full play to his Corsican patriotism and his own ambitions by attendance at Orezza, and by political agitation among the people. The second time he had remained a year and four months, retaining his hold on his commission by subterfuges and irregularities which, though condoned, had strained his relations with the ministry of war in Paris. He had openly defied the royal authority, relying on the coming storm for the concealment of his conduct if it should prove reprehensible, or for preferment in his own country if Corsica should secure her liberties. There is no reason, therefore, to suppose that his intentions for the third visit were different from those displayed in the other two, although again solicitude for his family was doubtless one of many considerations.

During Napoleon's absence from Corsica the condition of his family had not materially changed. Soon after his arrival the old archdeacon died, and his little fortune fell to the Buonapartes. Joseph, failing shortly afterward in his plan of being elected deputy to the French legislature, was chosen a member of the Corsican directory. He was, therefore, forced to occupy himself entirely with his new duties and to live at Corte. Fesch, as the eldest male, the mother's brother, and a priest at that, expected to assume the direction of the family affairs. But he was doomed to speedy disenchantment: thenceforward Napoleon was the family dictator. In conjunction with his uncle he used the whole or a considerable portion of the archdeacon's savings for the purchase of several estates from the national domain, as the sequestrated lands of the monasteries were called. Rendered thus more self-important, he talked much in the home circle concerning the greatness of classical antiquity, and wondered "who would not willingly have been stabbed, if only he could have been Cæsar? One feeble ray of his glory would be an ample recompense for sudden death." Such chances for Cæsarism as the island of Corsica afforded were very rapidly becoming better.

The Buonapartes had no influence whatever in these elections. Joseph was not even nominated. The choice fell upon two men selected by Paoli: one of them, Peraldi, was already embittered against the family; the other, Pozzo di Borgo, though so far friendly enough, thereafter became a relentless foe. Rising to eminence as a diplomat, accepting service in one and another country of Europe, the latter thwarted Napoleon at several important conjunctures. Paoli is thought by some to have been wounded by the frank criticism of his strategy by Napoleon: more likely he distrusted youths educated in France, and who, though noisy Corsicans, were, he shrewdly guessed, impregnated with French idealism. He himself cared for France only as by her help the largest possible autonomy for Corsica could be secured. In the directory of the department of Corsica, Joseph, and with him the Buonaparte influence, was reduced to impotence, while gratified with high position. The ignorance of the administrators was only paralleled by the difficulties of their work.

During the last few months religious agitation had been steadily increasing. Pious Catholics were embittered by the virtual expulsion of the old clergy, and the induction to office of new priests who had sworn to uphold the constitution. Amid the disorders of administration the people in ever larger numbers had secured arms; as of yore, they appeared at their assemblies under the guidance of their chiefs, ready to fight at a moment's notice. It was but a step to violence, and without any other provocation than religious exasperation the townsfolk of Bastia had lately sought to kill their new bishop. Even Arena, who had so recently seized the place in Paoli's interest, was now regarded as a French radical, maltreated, and banished with his supporters to Italy. The new election was at hand; the contest between the Paolists and the extreme French party grew hotter and hotter. Not only deputies to the new assembly, but likewise the superior officers of the new guard, were to be elected. Buonaparte, being only a lieutenant of the regulars, could according to the law aspire no higher than an appointment as adjutant-major with the title and pay of captain. It was not worth while to lose his place in France for this, so he determined to stand for one of the higher elective offices, that of lieutenant-colonel, a position which would give him more power, and, under the latest legislation, entitle him to retain his grade in the regular army.

There were now two political clubs in Ajaccio: that of the Corsican Jacobins, country people for the most part; and that of the Corsican Feuillants, composed of the officials and townsfolk. Buonaparte became a moving spirit in the former, and determined at any cost to destroy the influence of the latter. The two previous attempts to secure Ajaccio for the radicals had failed; a third was already under consideration. The new leader began to garnish his language with those fine and specious phrases which thenceforth were never wanting in his utterances at revolutionary crises. "Law," he wrote about this time, "is like those statues of some of the gods which are veiled under certain circumstances." For a few weeks there was little or nothing to do in the way of electioneering at home; he therefore obtained permission to travel with the famous Volney, who desired a philosopher's retreat from Paris storms and had been chosen director of commerce and manufactures in the island. This journey was for a candidate like Buonaparte invaluable as a means of observation and of winning friends for his cause.

Before the close of this trip his furlough had expired, his regiment had been put on a war footing, and orders had been issued for the return of every officer to his post by Christmas day. But in the execution of his fixed purpose the young Corsican patriot was heedless of military obligations to France, and wilfully remained absent from duty. Once more the spell of a wild, free life was upon him; he was enlisted for the campaign, though without position or money to back him. The essay on happiness which he had presented to the Academy of Lyons had failed, as a matter of course, to win the prize, one of the judges pronouncing it "too badly arranged, too uneven, too disconnected, and too badly written to deserve attention." This decision was a double blow, for it was announced about this time, at a moment when fame and money would both have been most welcome. The scanty income from the lands purchased with the legacy of the old archdeacon remained the only resource of the family for the lavish hospitality which, according to immemorial, semi-barbarous tradition, was required of a Corsican candidate.

A peremptory order was now issued from Paris that those officers of the line who had been serving in the National Guard with a grade lower than that of lieutenant-colonel should return to regular service before April first, 1792. Here was an implication which might be turned to account. As a lieutenant on leave, Buonaparte should of course have returned on December twenty-fifth; if, however, he were an officer of volunteers he could plead the new order. Though as yet the recruits had not come in, and no companies had been formed, the mere idea was sufficient to suggest a means for saving appearances. An appointment as adjutant-major was solicited from the major-general in command of the department, and he, under authorization obtained in due time from Paris, granted it. Safe from the charge of desertion thus far, it was essential for his reputation and for his ambition that Buonaparte should be elected lieutenant-colonel. Success would enable him to plead that his first lapse in discipline was due to irregular orders from his superior, that anyhow he had been an adjutant-major, and that finally the position of lieutenant-colonel gave him immunity from punishment, and left him blameless.

He nevertheless was uneasy, and wrote two letters of a curious character to his friend Sucy, the commissioner-general at Valence. In the first, written five weeks after the expiration of his leave, he calmly reports himself, and gives an account of his occupations, mentioning incidentally that unforeseen circumstances, duties the dearest and most sacred, had prevented his return. His correspondent would be so kind as not to mention the letter to the "gentlemen of the regiment," but the writer would immediately return if his friend in his unassisted judgment thought best. In the second he plumply declares that in perilous times the post of a good Corsican is at home, that therefore he had thought of resigning, but his friends had arranged the middle course of appointing him adjutant-major in the volunteers so that he could make his duty as a soldier conform to his duty as a patriot. Asking for news of what is going on in France, he says, writing like an outsider, "If your nation loses courage at this moment, it is done with forever."

It was toward the end of March that the volunteers from the mountains began to appear in Ajaccio for the election of their officers. Napoleon had bitter and powerful rivals, but his recent trip had apparently enabled him to win many friends among the men. While, therefore, success was possible by that means, there was another influence almost as powerful—that of three commissioners appointed by the directory of the island to organize and equip the battalion. These were Morati, a friend of Peraldi, the Paolist deputy; Quenza, more or less neutral, and Grimaldi, a devoted partisan of the Buonapartes. With skilful diplomacy Napoleon agreed that he would not presume to be a candidate for the office of first lieutenant-colonel, which was desired by Peretti, a near friend of Paoli, for his brother-in-law, Quenza, but would seek the position of second lieutenant-colonel. In this way he was assured of good will from two of the three commissioners; the other was of course hostile, being a partizan of Peraldi.

The election, as usual in Corsica, seems to have passed in turbulence and noisy violence. His enemies attacked Buonaparte with every weapon: their money, their influence, and in particular with ridicule. His stature, his poverty, and his absurd ambitions were held up to contempt and scorn. The young hotspur was cut to the quick, and, forgetting Corsican ways, made the witless blunder of challenging Peraldi to a duel, an institution scorned by the Corsican devotees of the vendetta. The climax of contempt was Peraldi's failure even to notice the challenge. At the crisis, Salicetti, a warm friend of the Buonapartes and a high official of the department, appeared with a considerable armed force to maintain order. This cowed the conservatives. The third commissioner, living as a guest with Peraldi, was seized during the night preceding the election by a body of Buonaparte's friends, and put under lock and key in their candidate's house—"to make you entirely free; you were not free where you were," said the instigator of the stroke, when called to explain. To the use of fine phrases was now added a facility in employing violence at a pinch which likewise remained characteristic of Buonaparte's career down to the end. Nasica, who alone records the tale, sees in this event the precursor of the long series of state-strokes which culminated on the eighteenth Brumaire. There is a story that in one of the scuffles incident to this brawl a member of Pozzo di Borgo's family was thrown down and trampled on. Be that as it may, Buonaparte was successful. This of course intensified the hatred already existing, and from that moment the families of Peraldi and of Pozzo di Borgo were his deadly enemies.

Quenza, who was chosen first lieutenant-colonel, was a man of no character whatever, a nobody. He was moreover absorbed in the duties of a place in the departmental administration. Buonaparte, therefore, was in virtual command of a sturdy, well-armed, legal force. Having been adjutant-major, and being now a regularly elected lieutenant-colonel according to statute, he applied, with a well-calculated effrontery, to his regimental paymaster for the pay which had accrued during his absence. It was at first refused, for in the interval he had been cashiered for remaining at home in disobedience to orders; but such were the irregularities of that revolutionary time that later, virtual deserter as he had been, it was actually paid and he was restored to his place. He sought and obtained from the military authorities of the island certificates of his regular standing and leave to present them in Paris if needed to maintain his rank as a French officer, but in the final event there was no necessity for their use. No one was more adroit than Buonaparte in taking advantage of possibilities. He was a pluralist without conscience. A French regular if the emergency should demand it, he was likewise a Corsican patriot and commander in the volunteer guard of the island, fully equipped for another move. Perhaps, at last, he could assume with success the liberator's rôle of Sampiero. But an opportunity must occur or be created. One was easily arranged.

Ajaccio had gradually become a resort for many ardent Roman Catholics who had refused to accept the new order. The town authorities, although there were some extreme radicals among them, were, on the whole, in sympathy with these conservatives. Through the devices of his friends in the city government, Buonaparte's battalion, the second, was on one pretext or another assembled in and around the town. Thereupon, following the most probable account, which, too, is supported by Buonaparte's own story, a demand was made that according to the recent ecclesiastical legislation of the National Assembly, the Capuchin monks, who had been so far undisturbed, should evacuate their friary. Feeling ran so high that the other volunteer companies were summoned; they arrived on April first. At once the public order was jeopardized: on one extreme were the religious fanatics, on the other the political agitators, both of whom were loud with threats and ready for violence. In the middle, between two fires, was the mass of the people, who sympathized with the ecclesiastics, but wanted peace at any hazard. Quarreling began first between individuals of the various factions, but it soon resulted in conflicts between civilians and the volunteer guard. The first step taken by the military was to seize and occupy the cloister, which lay just below the citadel, the final goal of their leader, whoever he was, and the townsfolk believed it was Buonaparte. Once inside the citadel walls, the Corsicans in the regular French service would, it was hoped, fraternize with their kin; with such a beginning, all the garrison might in time be won over.

This further exasperated the ultramontanes, and on Easter day, April eighth, they made demonstrations so serious that the scheming commander—Buonaparte again, it was believed—found the much desired pretext to interfere; there was a mêlée, and one of the militia officers was killed. Next morning the burghers found their town beset by the volunteers. Good citizens kept to their houses, while the acting mayor and the council were assembled to authorize an attack on the citadel. The authorities could not agree, and dispersed; the following forenoon it was discovered that the acting mayor and his sympathizers had taken refuge in the citadel. From the vantage of this stronghold they proposed to settle the difficulty by the arbitration of a board composed of two from each side, under the presidency of the commandant. There was again no agreement.

The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Vol. 1 (of 4)

THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE

PREFACE TO THE LIBRARY EDITION

PREFACE

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

CHAPTER I.

Introduction.

CHAPTER II.

The Bonapartes in Corsica.

CHAPTER III.

Napoleon's Birth and Childhood [1].

CHAPTER IV.

Napoleon's School-days [2].

CHAPTER V.

In Paris and Valence [6].

CHAPTER VI.

Private Study and Garrison Life.

CHAPTER VII.

Further Attempts at Authorship.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Revolution in France.

CHAPTER IX.

Buonaparte and Revolution in Corsica.

CHAPTER X.

First Lessons in Revolution.

CHAPTER XI.

Traits of Character.

CHAPTER XII.

The Revolution in the Rhone Valley.

CHAPTER XIII.

Buonaparte the Corsican Jacobin.

The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Vol. 1 (of 4)

THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE

PREFACE TO THE LIBRARY EDITION

PREFACE

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

CHAPTER I.

Introduction.

CHAPTER II.

The Bonapartes in Corsica.

CHAPTER III.

Napoleon's Birth and Childhood[1].

CHAPTER IV.

Napoleon's School-days[2].

CHAPTER V.

In Paris and Valence[6].

CHAPTER VI.

Private Study and Garrison Life.

CHAPTER VII.

Further Attempts at Authorship.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Revolution in France.

CHAPTER IX.

Buonaparte and Revolution in Corsica.

CHAPTER X.

First Lessons in Revolution.

CHAPTER XI.

Traits of Character.

CHAPTER XII.

The Revolution in the Rhone Valley.

CHAPTER XIII.

Buonaparte the Corsican Jacobin.

Napoleon's Birth and Childhood [1].

Napoleon's School-days [2].

In Paris and Valence [6].