Napoleon carried with him to his new home a letter of introduction
from the Bishop of Autun to the ex-Abbot of St. Ruffe, and with this
leverage he made his way into the best society of Valence. For the
first time circumstances were favorable to him, and the good effects
of the change were at once evident. Occupying a better place in life
than before, he was more contented, more sociable. He mingled with the
people about him, and made friends. No longer a waif, a charity boy
from abroad, thrust among other boys who looked down upon him as a
social inferior, he was now an officer of State, housed, fed, clothed,
salaried at the public expense. No longer under the wheels, he held
a front seat in that wondrous vehicle which men call government, and
in which a few so comfortably ride while the many so contentedly wear
harness and pull. No longer subject to everybody’s orders, Napoleon
had become one of the masters in God’s world here below, and could
issue orders himself. Glorious change! And the sun began to look bright
to “Lieutenant Bonaparte of the King’s Royal Academy.” He cultivated
himself and others socially. He found some congenial spirits among the
elderly men of the place; also some among the young women. In the hours
not spent in study, and not claimed by his duties, he could be found
chatting at the coffee-house, strolling with brother officers, dancing
at the neighborhood balls, and playing the beau amid the belles of this
high provincial circle.
To one of these young ladies, according to tradition and his own
statement, he lost his heart. But when we seek to know something more
definite, tradition and his own statements differ. If we are to accept
his version, the courtship led to nothing beyond a few promenades, and
the eating of cherries together in the early morning. According to the
local tradition, however, he proposed and was rejected. Her parents
were local aristocrats, and had so little confidence in the future of
the little officer that they married their girl by preference to a M.
de Bressieux--a good, safe, commonplace gentleman of the province. In
after years the lady reminded Napoleon of their early friendship, and
he at once made generous provision for both herself and husband.
If possible, Napoleon studied more diligently at Valence than at
Brienne. Plutarch’s _Lives_ and Cæsar’s _Commentaries_ he had already
mastered while a child; Rousseau had opened a new world of ideas to
him in Paris: he now continued his historical studies by reading
Herodotus, Strabo, Diodorus. Anything relating to India, China, Arabia,
had a peculiar charm for him. Next he learned all he could of Germany
and England. French history he studied minutely, striving to exhaust
information on the subject. In his researches he was not content
merely with ordinary historical data: he sought to understand the
secret meaning of events, and the origin of institutions. He studied
legislation, statistics, the history of the Church, especially the
relation of the Church to the State. Likewise he read the masterpieces
of French literature and the critical judgments which had been passed
upon them. Novels he did not disdain, and for poetry of the heroic cast
he had a great fondness.
He read also the works of Voltaire, Necker, Filangieri, and Adam
Smith. With Napoleon to read was to study. He made copious notes, and
these notes prove that he bent every faculty of his mind to the book
in hand. He analyzed, commented, weighed statements in the balance of
his own judgment--in short, doing everything necessary to the complete
mastery of the subject. A paper on which he jotted down at that time
his ideas of the relations between Church and State appear to show that
he had reached at that time the conclusions he afterward embodied in
the Concordat. Rousseau he studied again, but the book which seems to
have taken his fancy more than any other was the Abbé Raynal’s famous
_History of the Institutions and Commerce of the Europeans in the Two
Indies_. This book was a miscellany of essays and extracts treating of
superstition, tyranny, etc., and predicting that a revolution was at
hand in France if abuses were not reformed.
How was it that Napoleon, with his meagre salary, could command so many
costly books? A recent biographer patly states that he “subscribed to a
public library.” This may be true, but Napoleon himself explained to an
audience of kings and princes at Erfurth, in 1808, that he was indebted
to the kindness of one Marcus Aurelius, a rich bookseller, “a most
obliging man who placed his books at my service.”
The personal appearance of the young lieutenant was not imposing. He
was short, painfully thin, and awkward. His legs were so much too small
for his boots that he looked ridiculous--at least to one young lady,
who nicknamed him “Puss in Boots.” He wore immense “dog’s ears,” which
fell to his shoulders, and this style of wearing the hair gave his dark
Italian face a rather sinister look, impressing a lady acquaintance
with the thought that he would not be the kind of man one would like
to meet near a wood at night. Generally he was silent, wrapped in
his own thoughts; but when he spoke, his ideas were striking and his
expressions energetic. He rather affected the laconic, oracular style,
and his attitude was somewhat that of a man posing for effect. In
familiar social intercourse he was different. His smile became winning,
his voice soft and tender, and his magnetism irresistible. He loved to
joke others and play little pranks with them; but he could not relish a
joke at his own expense, nor did he encourage familiarity. He had none
of the brag, bluster, or roughness of the soldier about him, but in a
quiet way he was imperious, self-confident, self-sufficient. So little
did his appearance then, or at any other time, conform to the popular
ideal of the soldier, that one old grenadier of the Bourbon armies, on
having Napoleon pointed out to him, after the Italian campaign, could
not believe such a man could possibly be a great warrior. “That a
general!” said the veteran with contempt; “why, when he walks he does
not even step out with the right foot first!”
Extremely egotistic he was, and so remained to his last hour. He had
no reverence, looked for fact in all directions, had almost unerring
judgment, and believed himself superior to his fellow-students, to his
teachers, and to his brother officers. At the age of fifteen he was
giving advice to his father--very sound advice, too. At that early
age he had taken family responsibilities upon his shoulders, and was
gravely disposing of Joseph and Lucien. In a remarkable letter he
elaborately analyzed Joseph’s character, and reached the conclusion
that he was an amiable nonentity, fit only for society. It had been
well for Napoleon if he had always remembered this, and acted upon it.
In August, 1786, Napoleon spent a short time in Lyons. After this he
was perhaps sent to Douay in Flanders, though he himself has written
that on September 1, 1786, he obtained leave of absence and set out for
Corsica, which he reached on the fifteenth of the same month.
* * * * *
Napoleon found the condition of the family greatly changed. Charles
Bonaparte had died in France in February, 1785. General Marbeuf,
also, was dead. The French officials were not now so friendly to the
Bonapartes. Madame Letitia had been growing mulberry trees in order
to obtain the governmental bounty--the government being intent upon
building up the silk industry. Madame Bonaparte had apparently been
giving more thought to the bounty than to the trees, and the result was
that the officials had refused payment. Hence the supply of cash in
the household was cut down to Napoleon’s salary (about $225), and such
sums as could be teased out of the rich uncle--the miserly archdeacon.
Desperately worried as he must have been by the condition of the family
finances, Napoleon put a bold face upon it, strutting about town so
complacently that he gave much offence to the local magnates--the town
oracles whose kind words are not easily won by the neighborhood boys
who have gone to distant colleges for an education and have returned
for inspection and approval. To the sidewalk critics, who only nine
years ago had jeered at the slovenly lad and his girl sweetheart,
Napoleon’s style of walk and talk may have seemed that of inflated
self-conceit.
Like a good son, Napoleon exerted himself to the utmost in behalf of
his mother, making every effort to have the mulberry bounty paid, and
to wring revenue out of the family property. He met with no success in
either direction, though it appears that he prevailed upon the local
authorities to grant some slight favor to the family. At one time
Madame Letitia was reduced to the necessity of doing all her housework
with her own hands.
At Elba, the Emperor related a story which belongs to this period of
his life. He said that one day his mother’s mother was hobbling along
the street in Ajaccio, and that he and Pauline followed the old lady,
and mimicked her. Their grandmother, happening to turn, caught them
in the act. She complained to Madame Letitia. Pauline was at once
“spanked” and disposed of; Napoleon, who was rigged out in regimentals,
could not be handled. His mother bided her time. Next day, when her
son was off his guard, she cried, “Quick, Napoleon! You are invited to
dine with the governor!” He ran up to his room to change clothing--she
quietly followed. When she judged that the proper time had come, she
rushed into the room, seized her undressed hero before he guessed
her purpose, laid him across the maternal knees, and belabored him
earnestly with the flat of her hand.
In October, 1787, Napoleon was again in Paris, petitioning the
government in behalf of his mother, and seeking to have his furlough
extended. Failing as to his mother, succeeding as to himself, he
was back home in January, 1788, and remained there until June of the
same year. While in Corsica, Napoleon frequently dined with brother
officers in the French army. Between him and them, however, there was
little congeniality. He was hotly Paolist, and his talk was either of
Corsican independence or of topics historical and governmental. His
brother officers did not enjoy these conversations. His patriotism
offended; his learning bored them. What did the average French officer
of that day know or care about history and the science of government?
The upshot of such a dinner-party usually was that Napoleon got into a
wrangle with that one of the officers who imagined he knew something
of the subject, while the others, who honestly realized that they did
not, would walk off in disgust. “My comrades, like myself,” says M. de
Renain, one of the officers in question, “lost patience with what we
considered ridiculous stuff and pedantry.”
So far did Napoleon carry his patriotic sentiments that he rather
plainly threatened to take sides with the Corsicans if any collision
should occur between the French and his countrymen. Upon this, one of
the officers who disliked him asked sharply, “Would you draw your sword
against the soldiers of the King?”
Napoleon, dressed in the King’s uniform, had the good sense to remain
silent. The officers were offended at his tone, and, says Renain, “This
is the last time he did me the honor of dining with me.”
Not for a day had Napoleon neglected his books. To escape the household
noises, he went to the attic, and there pursued his studies. Far
and wide ranged his restless mind, from the exact sciences, dry and
heavy, to Plato and Ossian, rich in suggestions to the most opulent
imagination nature ever gave a practical man. To the very last,
Napoleon remained half mystic; and when he stood in the storm the night
before Waterloo, and cast into the darkness the words, “We are agreed”;
or when he remained silent for hours at St. Helena watching the vast
wings of the mist whirl, and turn, and soar around the summit of the
bleak, barren mountain of rock, we feel that if pens were there to
trace his thought, Ossian would seem to live again. From his youth up
the most striking characteristic of his mind was its enormous range;
its wide sweep from the pettiest, prosiest details of fact to the
sublimest dreams and the most chimerical fancies. Not wholly satisfied
with reading and commentary, he strove to compose. Under the Bourbons,
his outlook in the army was not promising. He might hope, after many
tedious years of garrison service, to become a captain; after that it
would be a miracle if he rose higher. Hence his lack of interest in the
routine work of a soldier, and hence his ambition to become an author.
He wrote a story called _The Count of Essex_, also a novel founded on
Corsican life, and pulsing with hatred of France. Another story which
he called _The Masked Prophet_, is the same which Moore afterward used
in _The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan_.
His greatest exertions, however, were spent upon the _History of
Corsica_. To this work he clung with a tenacity of purpose that is
touching. All the long, tragic story of Corsica seems to have run
like fire in the boy’s veins, and the heroes of his country--Paoli,
Sampiero, Della Rocca--seemed to him to be as great as the men of
antiquity, as perhaps they were. Therefore, the young man wrote and
rewrote, trying to get the book properly written, his thoughts properly
expressed. He had turned to Raynal, as we have seen, and the Abbé had
kindly said, “Search further, and write it over.” And Napoleon had done
so. At least three times he had recast the entire book. He sought the
approval of a former teacher, Dupuy; he sent “copy” to Paoli. Dupuy
had a poor opinion of the performance; and Paoli told him flatly he
was too young to write history. But Napoleon persevered, finished the
work, and eagerly sought publishers. Alas! the publishers shook their
heads. Finally, at Paris was found a bold adventurer in the realm of
book-making, who was willing to undertake half the cost if the author
would furnish the other half. But for one reason or another the book
was never published.
The passionate earnestness with which Napoleon toiled at his book on
Corsican history, the intense sympathy with which he studied the lives
of Corsican heroes, the fiery wrath he nursed against those who had
stricken down Corsican liberties, were but so many evidences of the set
purpose of his youth--to free his country, to give it independence.
There is no doubt that the one consuming ambition of these early years
was as pure as it was great: he would do what Sampiero and Paoli had
failed to do--he would achieve the independence of Corsica!
Napoleon rejoined his regiment at Auxonne at the end of May, 1788.
That he did so with reluctance is apparent from the manner in which
he had distorted facts to obtain extension of his furlough. Garrison
duty had no charms for him; the dull drudgery of daily routine became
almost insupportable. It appears that he was put under arrest for the
unsatisfactory manner in which he had superintended some work on the
fortifications. When off duty he gave his time to his books. He became
ill, and wrote to his mother, “I have no resource but work. I dress but
once in eight days. I sleep but little, and take but one meal a day.”
Under this regimen of no exercise, hard work, and little sleep he came
near dying.
In September, 1789, came another furlough, and the wan-looking
lieutenant turned his face homeward. In passing through Marseilles he
paid his respects to the Abbé Raynal.