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.



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. Lomenie 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.

[Footnote 3: The sources of these statements are two letters of 5 April, 1781, and 8 October, 1783; first printed in the Memoires sur la vie de Bonaparte, etc., etc., par le comte Charles d'Og.... This pseudonym covers a still unknown author; the documents have been for the most part considered genuine and have been reprinted as such by many authorities, including Jung. Though this author was an official in the ministry of war and had its archives at his disposal, he gives one letter without any authority and the other as in the "Archives de la guerre." Many searchers, including the writer, have sought them there without result. Latterly their authenticity has been denied on the ground of inherent improbability, since pocket money was by rule almost unknown in the royal colleges, and Corsican homesickness is as common as that of the Swiss. But rules prove nothing and the letters seem inherently genuine.]

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 role, 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.

[Footnote 4: Du Casse, Supplement a la Correspondence de Napoleon Ier, Vol. X, p. 50. Masson, I, 79-84.]

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.

[Footnote 5: This letter, which is without date, is printed in Coston, as taken from the newspapers; again in a revised form in Nasica: Memoires sur l'enfance et la jeunesse de Napoleon, p. 71, who claimed to have collated it with the original; and again in Jung: Bonaparte et son temps, who gives as his reference, Archives de la guerre, preserving exactly the form given by Nasica. The Napoleon papers of the War Department were freely, and I believe entirely, put into my hands for examination. This letter was not among them; in fact, my efforts to confirm the references of Jung were sadly ineffectual.]

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."



CHAPTER V.

In Paris and Valence[6].

[Footnote 6: Authorities as before for this and the five chapters following.]

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 Fere — Demoralization of the French Army — The Men in the Ranks — Napoleon as a Beau — Return to Study — His Profession and Vocation.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Footnote 7: This is the date given by himself on the slip of paper headed "Epoques de ma vie" and contained in the Fesch papers, now deposited in the Laurentian Library at Florence. Here and there the text is very difficult to decipher, but the line "Parti pour l'ecole de Paris, le 30 Octobre 1784" is perfectly legible. Las Cases, in the Memorial, Vol. I, p. 160, represents Napoleon as quoting Keralio in declaring that it was not for his birth or his attainments but for the qualities he discerned in the boy that he sent him with imperfect preparation to Paris.]

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 Abrantes. 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 Juigne, 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 Abbe Coustou. Joseph, prostrated by grief, was taken into Mme. Permon's house and received the tenderest consolation.[8]

[Footnote 8: Memoires du roi Joseph, I, 29.]

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. Phelipeaux 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.

[Footnote 9: The examiner in mathematics was the great Laplace.]

[Footnote 10: Taken from the apocryphal Memoirs of the Count d'Og ... previously mentioned. See Masson: Napoleon inconnu, I, 123; Chuquet, I, 260; Jung, I, 125.]

[Footnote 11: Las Cases, I, 112. Napoleon confessed his inability to learn German, but prided himself on his historical knowledge.]

The two friends had both asked for appointments in a regiment stationed at Valence, known by the style of La Fere. 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 Fere 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 Fere 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 Abbe 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 chateau 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 Abbe 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.

[Footnote 12: For an amusing caricature by a comrade at Paris, see Chuquet: La jeunesse de Napoleon, I, 262. The legend is: "Buonaparte, cours, vole au secours de Paoli pour le tirer des mains de ses ennemis."]

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.



CHAPTER VI.

Private Study and Garrison Life.

Napoleon as a Student of Politics — Nature of Rousseau's Political Teachings — The Abbe 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.

[Sidenote: 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 Abbe 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 abbe'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."

[Footnote 13: Masson (Napoleon inconnu, Vol. I, p. 160) denies all the statements of this paragraph. He likewise proves to his own satisfaction that Bonaparte was neither in Lyons nor in Douay at this time. The narrative here given is based on Coston and on Jung, who follows the former in his reprint of the documents, giving the very dubious reference, Mss. Archives de la guerre. Although these manuscripts could not be found by me, I am not willing to discard Jung's authority completely nor to impugn his good faith. Men in office frequently play strange pranks with official papers, and these may yet be found. Moreover, there is some slight collateral evidence. See Vieux: Napoleon a Lyon, p. 4, and Souvenirs a l'usage des habitants de Douay. Douay, 1822.]

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 Remusat, 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]

[Footnote 14: The volumes of Napoleon inconnu contain the text of these papers as deciphered for M. Masson and revised by him. My own examination, which antedated his transcription by more than a year (1891), led me to trust their authenticity absolutely, as far as the writer's memory and good faith are concerned. I cannot rely as positively as Masson does on the Epoques de ma vie, which has the appearance of a casual scribbling done in an idle moment on the first scrap that came to hand.]

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 Abbe 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 Abbe 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 Fere, 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.



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.

[Sidenote: 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 Fere. 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 Fere. 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 role 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, Lomenie 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.

[Footnote 15: Correspondence of Sir John Sinclair, I, 47.]

[Footnote 16: Souvenirs d'un officier royaliste, par M. de R..., Vol. I, p. 117.]

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 Abbe 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."

[Footnote 17: Printed in Napoleon inconnu, Vol. II, p. 167.]

Neither the publishers of Valence, nor those of Dole, 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 Fere 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 manoeuvers held in honor of the Prince of Conde. 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.

[Footnote 18: Similar instances of repeated and lengthened absence from duty among the young officers are numerous and easily found in the archives. Nevertheless, Buonaparte's case is a very extraordinary example of how a clever person could work the system. The facts are bad enough, but as many cities claimed Homer, so in the Napoleonic legend events of a sojourn at Strasburg about this time were given in great detail. He was in relations with a famous actress and wrote verses which are printed. Even Metternich records that the young Napoleon Bonaparte had just left the Alsatian capital when he himself arrived there in 1788. Later, in 1806, a fencing-master claimed that he had instructed both these great men in the earlier year at Strasburg. Yet the whole tale is impossible. See Napoleon inconnu, Vol. I, p. 204.]

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.



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.



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.

[Sidenote: 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.