The young Napoleon had, of course, the simple and hardy education proper
to the natives of the mountainous island of his birth, and in his
infancy was not remarkable for more than that animation of temper, and
wilfulness and impatience of inactivity, by which children of quick
parts and lively sensibility are usually distinguished. The winter of
the year was generally passed by the family of his father at Ajaccio,
where they still preserve and exhibit, as the ominous play-thing of
Napoleon's boyhood, the model of a brass cannon, weighing about thirty
pounds.[4] We leave it to philosophers to inquire, whether the future
love of war was suggested by the accidental possession of such a toy; or
whether the tendency of the mind dictated the selection of it; or,
lastly, whether the nature of the pastime, corresponding with the taste
which chose it, may not have had each their action and reaction, and
contributed between them to the formation of a character so warlike.
[4] "Sketches of Corsica," p. 4.
The same traveller who furnishes the above anecdote, gives an
interesting account of the country retreat of the family of Bonaparte
during the summer.
Going along the sea-shore from Ajaccio towards the Isle Sanguiniere,
about a mile from the town, occur two stone pillars, the remains of a
doorway, leading up to a dilapidated villa, once the residence of Madame
Bonaparte's half-brother on the mother's side, whom Napoleon created
Cardinal Fesch.[5] The house is approached by an avenue, surrounded and
overhung by the cactus and other shrubs, which luxuriate in a warm
climate. It has a garden and a lawn, showing amidst neglect vestiges of
their former beauty, and the house is surrounded by shrubberies,
permitted to run to wilderness. This was the summer residence of Madame
Bonaparte and her family. Almost enclosed by the wild olive, the cactus,
the clematis, and the almond-tree, is a very singular and isolated
granite rock, called Napoleon's grotto, which seems to have resisted the
decomposition which has taken place around. The remains of a small
summer-house are visible beneath the rock, the entrance to which is
nearly closed by a luxuriant fig-tree. This was Bonaparte's frequent
retreat, when the vacations of the school at which he studied permitted
him to visit home. How the imagination labours to form an idea of the
visions, which, in this sequestered and romantic spot, must have arisen
before the eyes of the future hero of a hundred battles!
[5] The mother of Letitia Ramolini, wife of Carlo Bonaparte,
married a Swiss officer in the French service, named Fesch,
after the death of Letitia's father.
Bonaparte's ardour for the abstract sciences amounted to a passion, and
was combined with a singular aptitude for applying them to the purposes
of war, while his attention to pursuits so interesting and exhaustless
in themselves, was stimulated by his natural ambition and desire of
distinction. Almost all the scientific teachers at Brienne, being
accustomed to study the character of their pupils, and obliged by their
duty to make memoranda and occasional reports on the subject, spoke of
the talents of Bonaparte, and the progress of his studies, with
admiration. Circumstances of various kinds, exaggerated or invented,
have been circulated concerning the youth of a person so remarkable. The
following are given upon good authority.[6]
[6] They were many years since communicated to the author by
Messrs. Joseph and Louis Law, brothers of General Baron
Lauriston, Bonaparte's favourite aid-de-camp. These gentlemen,
or at least Joseph, were educated at Brienne, but at a later
period than Napoleon. Their distinguished brother was his
contemporary.
The conduct of Napoleon among his companions was that of a studious and
reserved youth, addicting himself deeply to the means of improvement,
and rather avoiding than seeking the usual temptations to dissipation of
time. He had few friends, and no intimates; yet at different times, when
he chose to exert it, he exhibited considerable influence over his
fellow-students, and when there was any joint plan to be carried into
effect, he was frequently chosen dictator of the little republic.
In the time of winter, Bonaparte, upon one occasion, engaged his
companions in constructing a fortress out of the snow, regularly
defended by ditches and bastions, according to the rules of
fortification. It was considered as displaying the great powers of the
juvenile engineer in the way of his profession, and was attacked and
defended by the students, who divided into parties for the purpose,
until the battle became so keen that their superiors thought it proper
to proclaim a truce.
The young Bonaparte gave another instance of address and enterprise upon
the following occasion. There was a fair held annually in the
neighbourhood of Brienne, where the pupils of the Military School used
to find a day's amusement; but on account of a quarrel betwixt them and
the country people upon a former occasion, or for some such cause, the
masters of the institution had directed that the students should not on
the fair-day be permitted to go beyond their own precincts, which were
surrounded with a wall. Under the direction of the young Corsican,
however, the scholars had already laid a plot for securing their usual
day's diversion. They had undermined the wall which encompassed their
exercising ground, with so much skill and secrecy, that their operations
remained entirely unknown till the morning of the fair, when a part of
the boundary unexpectedly fell, and gave a free passage to the
imprisoned students, of which they immediately took the advantage, by
hurrying to the prohibited scene of amusement.
But although on these, and perhaps other occasions, Bonaparte displayed
some of the frolic temper of youth, mixed with the inventive genius and
the talent for commanding others by which he was distinguished in after
time, his life at school was in general that of a recluse and severe
student, acquiring by his judgment, and treasuring in his memory, that
wonderful process of almost unlimited combination, by means of which he
was afterwards able to simplify the most difficult and complicated
undertakings. His mathematical teacher was proud of the young islander,
as the boast of his school, and his other scientific instructors had the
same reason to be satisfied.
In languages Bonaparte was less a proficient, and never acquired the art
of writing or spelling French, far less foreign languages, with accuracy
or correctness; nor had the monks of Brienne any reason to pride
themselves on the classical proficiency of their scholar. The full
energies of his mind being devoted to the scientific pursuits of his
profession, left little time or inclination for other studies.
Though of Italian origin, Bonaparte had not a decided taste for the fine
arts, and his taste in composition seems to have leaned towards the
grotesque and the bombastic. He used always the most exaggerated
phrases; and it is seldom, if ever, that his bulletins present those
touches of sublimity which are founded on dignity and simplicity of
expression.
Notwithstanding the external calmness and reserve of his deportment, he
who was destined for such great things had, while yet a student at
Brienne, a full share of that ambition for distinction and dread of
disgrace, that restless and irritating love of fame, which is the spur
to extraordinary attempts. Sparkles of this keen temper sometimes showed
themselves. On one occasion, a harsh superintendant imposed on the
future emperor, for some trifling fault, the disgrace of wearing a
penitential dress, and being excluded from the table of the students,
and obliged to eat his meal apart. His pride felt the indignity so
severely, that it brought on a severe nervous attack; to which, though
otherwise of good constitution, he was subject upon occasions of
extraordinary irritation. Father Petrault, the professor of mathematics,
hastened to deliver his favourite pupil from the punishment by which he
was so much affected.
It is also said that an early disposition to the popular side
distinguished Bonaparte even when at Brienne. Pichegru, afterwards so
celebrated, who acted as his monitor in the military school, (a singular
circumstance,) bore witness to his early principles, and to the peculiar
energy and tenacity of his temper. He was long afterwards consulted
whether means might not be found to engage the commander of the Italian
armies in the royal interest. "It will be but lost time to attempt it,"
said Pichegru. "I knew him in his youth--his character is inflexible--he
has taken his side, and he will not change it."
In 1783, Napoleon Bonaparte, then only fourteen years old, was, though
under the usual age, selected by Monsieur de Keralio, the inspector of
the twelve military schools, to be sent to have his education completed
in the general school of Paris. It was a compliment paid to the
precocity of his extraordinary mathematical talent, and the steadiness
of his application. While at Paris he attracted the same notice as at
Brienne; and among other society, frequented that of the celebrated Abbé
Raynal, and was admitted to his literary parties. His taste did not
become correct, but his appetite for study in all departments was
greatly enlarged; and notwithstanding the quantity which he daily read,
his memory was strong enough to retain, and his judgment sufficiently
ripe to arrange and digest, the knowledge which he then acquired; so
that he had it at his command during all the rest of his busy life.
Plutarch was his favourite author; upon the study of whom he had so
modelled his opinions and habits of thought, that Paoli afterwards
pronounced him a young man of an antique caste, and resembling one of
the classical heroes.
Some of his biographers have about this time ascribed to him the
anecdote of a certain youthful pupil of the military school, who desired
to ascend in the car of a balloon with the aëronaut Blanchard, and was
so mortified at being refused, that he made an attempt to cut the
balloon with his sword. The story has but a flimsy support, and indeed
does not accord well with the character of the hero, which was deep and
reflective, as well as bold and determined, and not likely to suffer its
energies to escape in idle and useless adventure.
A better authenticated anecdote states, that at this time he expressed
himself disrespectfully towards the king in one of his letters to his
family. According to the practice of the school, he was obliged to
submit the letter to the censorship of Monsieur Domairon, the professor
of belles lettres, who, taking notice of the offensive passage, insisted
upon the letter being burnt, and added a severe rebuke. Long afterwards,
in 1802, Monsieur Domairon was commanded to attend Napoleon's levee, in
order that he might receive a pupil in the person of Jerome Bonaparte,
when the first consul reminded his old tutor good-humouredly, that times
had changed considerably since the burning of the letter.
Napoleon Bonaparte, in his seventieth year, received his first
commission as second lieutenant in a regiment of artillery, and was
almost immediately afterwards promoted to the rank of first lieutenant
in the corps quartered at Valence. He mingled with society when he
joined his regiment, more than he had hitherto been accustomed to do;
mixed in public amusements, and exhibited the powers of pleasing, which
he possessed in an uncommon degree when he chose to exert them. His
handsome and intelligent features, with his active and neat, though
slight figure, gave him additional advantages. His manners could
scarcely be called elegant, but made up in vivacity and variety of
expression, and often in great spirit and energy, for what they wanted
in grace and polish.
He became an adventurer for the honours of literature also, and was
anonymously a competitor for the prize offered by the Academy of Lyons
on Raynal's question, "What are the principles and institutions, by
application of which mankind can be raised to the highest pitch of
happiness?" The prize was adjudged to the young soldier. It is
impossible to avoid feeling curiosity to know the character of the
juvenile theories respecting government, advocated by one who at length
attained the power of practically making what experiments he pleased.
Probably his early ideas did not exactly coincide with his more mature
practice; for when Talleyrand, many years afterwards, got the essay out
of the records of the academy, and returned it to the author, Bonaparte
destroyed it after he had read a few pages. He also laboured under the
temptation of writing a journey to Mount Cenis, after the manner of
Sterne, which he was fortunate enough finally to resist. The affectation
which pervades Sterne's peculiar style of composition was not likely to
be simplified under the pen of Bonaparte.
Sterner times were fast approaching, and the nation was now fully
divided by those factions which produced the revolution. The officers of
Bonaparte's regiment were also divided into royalists and patriots; and
it is easily to be imagined, that the young and friendless stranger and
adventurer should adopt that side to which he had already shown some
inclination, and which promised to open the most free career to those
who had only their merit to rely on. "Were I a general officer," he is
alleged to have said, "I would have adhered to the king; being a
subaltern, I join the patriots."
There was a story current, that in a debate with some brother officers
on the politics of the time, Bonaparte expressed himself so
outrageously, that they were provoked to throw him into the Rhone, where
he had nearly perished. But this is an inaccurate account of the
accident which actually befell him. He was seized with the cramp when
bathing in the river. His comrades saved him with difficulty, but his
danger was matter of pure chance.
Napoleon has himself recorded that he was a warm patriot during the
whole sitting of the National Assembly; but that on the appointment of
the Legislative Assembly, he became shaken in his opinions. If so, his
original sentiments regained force, for we shortly afterwards find him
entertaining such as went to the extreme heights of the revolution.
Early in the year 1792, Bonaparte became a captain in the artillery by
seniority; and in the same year, being at Paris, he witnessed the two
insurrections of the 20th of June and 10th of August. He was accustomed
to speak of the insurgents as the most despicable banditti, and to
express with what ease a determined officer could have checked these
apparently formidable, but dastardly and unwieldy masses. But with what
a different feeling of interest would Napoleon have looked on that
infuriated populace, those still resisting though overpowered Swiss, and
that burning palace, had any seer whispered to him, "Emperor that shall
be, all this blood and massacre is but to prepare your future empire!"
Little anticipating the potent effect which the passing events were to
bear on his own fortune, Bonaparte, anxious for the safety of his mother
and family, was now desirous to change France for Corsica, where the
same things were acting on a less distinguished stage.