Napoleon's Birth and Childhood[1].
[Footnote 1: The indispensable authority for the youth
of Napoleon is the collection of his own papers edited,
not always judiciously, by Frédéric Masson and published
by him in coöperation with G. Biagi under the title
Napoléon inconnu. The originals are now in the
Laurentian Library at Florence. They were intrusted by
the Emperor to Cardinal Fesch as a safe depositary,
probably in the hope that they would eventually be
destroyed. What the cardinal actually did with them
remains obscure. Some time early in the nineteenth
century they came into possession of a certain Libri,
one of the French government library inspectors, an
unscrupulous collector and dealer. From them he
excerpted enough matter for an article which, before his
disgrace, was published in an early number of the Revue
des Deux Mondes, but in the publication there was no
statement of authority and the article was forgotten,
important as it was. The originals were not found or
known until in the sale catalogue of Lord Ashburnham's
library appeared a lot entitled merely Napoleon Papers.
This fact was brought to the author's attention by a
friend, and when after a smart competition between
agents of the French and Italian governments the
manuscripts were deposited at Florence, he sought
permission immediately to examine and study them. This
was promptly granted, they proved to be the lost Fesch
papers, and for the first time it was possible to obtain
a clear account of Napoleon's early years. The standard
authorities hitherto had been the works of Nasica,
Coston, and Jung: while they still have a certain value,
it is slight in view of the reliable deductions to be
drawn from the original boy papers of Napoleon
Bonaparte. Later on and after the publication of the
corresponding portion of this Life, they were edited,
printed, and published. In the main there is no room for
difference with the transcript of M. Masson, but in some
places where the writing is uncommonly bad the author's
own transcript presents the facts as stated in these
pages. Within a few years M. Chuquet has summed up
admirably all our authentic knowledge of the subject--in
a book entitled: La jeunesse de Napoléon. His own
researches have brought to light some further valuable
material. I have not hesitated in this revision to make
the freest use of the latest authorities, but it is a
gratification that no substantial changes, except by way
of slight additions, have been found necessary.]
Birth of Nabulione or Joseph -- Date of Napoleon's Birth --
Coincidence with the Festival of the Assumption -- The Name
of Napoleon -- Corsican Conditions as Influencing Napoleon's
Character -- His Early Education -- Childish Traits --
Influenced by Traditions Concerning Paoli -- Family
Prospects -- Influence of Marbeuf -- Upheavals in France --
Napoleon Appointed to a Scholarship -- His Efforts to Learn
French at Autun -- Development of His Character -- His
Father Delegate of the Corsican Nobility at Versailles.
[Sidenote: 1768-79.]
The trials of poverty made the Buonapartes so clever and adroit that
suspicions of shiftiness in small matters were developed later on, and
these led to an over-close scrutiny of their acts. The opinion has
not yet disappeared among reputable authorities that Nabulione and
Napoleone were one and the same, born on January seventh, 1768, Joseph
being really the younger, born on the date assigned to his
distinguished brother. The earliest documentary evidence consists of
two papers, one in the archives of the French war department, one in
those of Ajaccio. The former is dated 1782, and testifies to the birth
of Nabulione on January seventh, 1768, and to his baptism on January
eighth; the latter is the copy, not the original, of a government
contract which declares the birth, on January seventh, of Joseph
Nabulion. Neither is decisive, but the addition of Joseph, with the
use of the two French forms for the name in the second, with the clear
intent of emphasizing his quality as a Frenchman, destroys much of its
value, and leaves the weight of authority with the former. The
reasonableness of the suspicion seems to be heightened by the fact
that the certificate of Napoleon's marriage gives the date of his
birth as February eighth, 1768. Moreover, in the marriage contract of
Joseph, witnesses testify to his having been born at Ajaccio, not at
Corte.
But there are facts of greater weight on the other side. In the first
place, the documentary evidence is itself of equal value, for the
archives of the French war department also contain an extract from the
one original baptismal certificate, which is dated July twenty-first,
1771, the day of the baptism, and gives the date of Napoleone's birth
as August fifteenth, 1769. Charles's application for the appointment
of his two eldest boys to Brienne has also been found, and it
contains, according to regulation, still another copy from the
original certificate, which is dated June twenty-third, 1776, and also
gives what must be accepted as the correct date. This explodes the
story that Napoleon's age was falsified by his father in order to
obtain admittance for him to the military school. The application was
made in 1776 for both boys, so as to secure admission for each before
the end of his tenth year. It was the delay of the authorities in
granting the request which, after the lapse of three years or more,
made Joseph ineligible. The father could have had no motive in 1776 to
perpetrate a fraud, and after that date it was impossible, for the
papers were not in his hands; moreover, the minister of war wrote in
1778 that the name of the elder Buonaparte boy had already been
withdrawn. That charge was made during Napoleon's lifetime. His
brother Joseph positively denied it, and asserted the fact as it is
now substantially proved to be; Bourrienne, who had known his Emperor
as a child of nine, was of like opinion; Napoleon himself, in an
autograph paper still existing, and written in the handwriting of his
youth, thrice gives the date of his birth as August fifteenth, 1769.
If the substitution occurred, it must have been in early infancy.
Besides, we know why Napoleon at marriage sought to appear older than
he was, and Joseph's contract was written when the misstatement in it
was valuable as making him appear thoroughly French.
Among other absurd efforts to besmirch Napoleon's character is the
oft-repeated insinuation that he fixed his birthday on the greatest
high festival of the Roman Church, that of the Assumption of the
Virgin Mary, in order to assure its perpetual celebration! In sober
fact the researches of indefatigable antiquaries have brought to light
not only the documentary evidence referred to, but likewise the
circumstance that Napoleon, in one paper spelled Lapulion, was a not
uncommon Corsican name borne by several distinguished men, and that in
the early generation of the Buonaparte family the boys had been named
Joseph, Napoleon, and Lucien as they followed one another into the
world. In the eighteenth century spelling was scarcely more fixed than
in the sixteenth. Nor in the walk of life to which the Buonapartes
belonged was the fixity of names as rigid then as it later became.
There were three Maria-Annas in the family first and last, one of whom
was afterward called Elisa.
As to the form of the name Napoleon, there is a curious though
unimportant confusion. We have already seen the forms Nabulione,
Nabulion, Napoleone, Napoleon. Contemporary documents give also the
form Napoloeone, and his marriage certificate uses Napolione. On the
Vendôme Column stands Napolio. Imp., which might be read either
Napolioni Imperatori or Napolio Imperatori. In either case we have
indications of a new form, Napolion or Napolius. The latter, which was
more probably intended, would seem to be an attempt to recall
Neopolus, a recognized saint's name. The absence of the name Napoleon
from the calendar of the Latin Church was considered a serious
reproach to its bearer by those who hated him, and their incessant
taunts stung him. In youth his constant retort was that there were
many saints and only three hundred and sixty-five days in the year. In
after years he had the matter remedied, and the French Catholics for a
time celebrated a St. Napoleon's day with proper ceremonies, among
which was the singing of a hymn composed to celebrate the power and
virtues of the holy man for whom it was named. The irreverent
school-boys of Autun and Brienne gave the nickname "straw
nose"--_paille-au-nez_--to both the brothers. The pronunciation,
therefore, was probably as uncertain as the form, Napaille-au-nez
being probably a distortion of Napouilloné. The chameleon-like
character of the name corresponds exactly to the chameleon-like
character of the times, the man, and the lands of his birth and of his
adoption. The Corsican noble and French royalist was Napoleone de
Buonaparté; the Corsican republican and patriot was Napoléone
Buonaparté; the French republican, Napoléon Buonaparte; the victorious
general, Bonaparte; the emperor, Napoléon. There was likewise a change
in this person's handwriting analogous to the change in his
nationality and opinions. It was probably to conceal a most defective
knowledge of French that the adoptive Frenchman, as republican,
consul, and emperor, abandoned the fairly legible hand of his youth,
and recurred to the atrocious one of his childhood, continuing always
to use it after his definite choice of a country.
Stormy indeed were his nation and his birthtime. He himself said: "I
was born while my country was dying. Thirty thousand French, vomited
on our shores, drowning the throne of liberty in waves of blood--such
was the horrid sight which first met my view. The cries of the dying,
the groans of the oppressed, tears of despair, surrounded my cradle at
my birth."
These were the words he used in 1789, while still a Corsican in
feeling, when addressing Paoli. They strain chronology for the sake of
rhetorical effect, but they truthfully picture the circumstances under
which he was conceived. Among many others of a similar character there
is a late myth which recalls in detail that when the pains of
parturition seized his mother she was at mass, and that she reached
her chamber just in time to deposit, on a carpet or a piece of
embroidery representing the young Achilles, the prodigy bursting so
impetuously into the world. By the man himself his nature was always
represented as the product of his hour, and this he considered a
sufficient excuse for any line of conduct he chose to follow. When in
banishment at Longwood, and on his death-bed, he recalled the
circumstances of his childhood in conversations with the attendant
physician, a Corsican like himself. "Nothing awed me; I feared no one.
I struck one, I scratched another, I was a terror to everybody. It was
my brother Joseph with whom I had most to do; he was beaten, bitten,
scolded, and I had put the blame on him almost before he knew what he
was about; was telling tales about him almost before he could collect
his wits. I had to be quick: my mama Letizia would have restrained my
warlike temper; she would not have put up with my defiant petulance.
Her tenderness was severe, meting out punishment and reward with equal
justice; merit and demerit, she took both into account."
Of his earliest education he said at the same time: "Like everything
else in Corsica, it was pitiful." Lucien Buonaparte, his great-uncle,
was a canon, a man of substance with an income of five thousand livres
a year, and of some education--sufficient, at least, to permit his
further ecclesiastical advancement. "Uncle" Fesch, whose father had
received the good education of a Protestant Swiss boy, and had in turn
imparted his knowledge to his own son, was the friend and older
playmate of the turbulent little Buonaparte. The child learned a few
notions of Bible history, and, doubtless, also the catechism, from the
canon; by his eleven-year-old uncle he was taught his alphabet. In his
sixth year he was sent to a dame's school. The boys teased him because
his stockings were always down over his shoes, and for his devotion to
the girls, one named Giacominetta especially. He met their taunts with
blows, using sticks, bricks, or any handy weapon.
According to his own story, he was fearless in the face of superior
numbers, however large. His mother, according to his brother Joseph,
declared that he was a perfect imp of a child. She herself described
him as fond of playing at war with a drum, wooden sword, and files of
toy soldiers. The pious nuns who taught him recognized a certain gift
for figures in styling him their little mathematician. Later when in
attendance at the Jesuit school he regularly encountered on his way
thither a soldier with whom he exchanged his own piece of white bread
for a morsel of the other's coarse commissary loaf. The excuse he
gave, according to his mother, was that he must learn to like such
food if he were to be a soldier. In time his passion for the simple
mathematics he studied increased to such a degree that she assigned
him a rough shed in the rear of their home as a refuge from the
disturbing noise of the family. For exercise he walked the streets at
nightfall with tumbled hair and disordered clothes. Of French he knew
not a word; he had lessons at school in his mother tongue, which he
learned to read under the instruction of the Abbé Recco. The worthy
teacher arrayed his boys in two bodies: the diligent under the
victorious standard of Rome, the idle as vanquished Carthaginians.
Napoleon of right belonged to the latter, but he was transferred, not
because of merit, by the sheer force of his imperious temper.
This scanty information is all the trustworthy knowledge we possess
concerning the little Napoleon up to his tenth year. With slight
additions from other sources it is substantially the great Napoleon's
own account of himself by the mouthpiece partly of his mother in his
prosperous days, partly of Antommarchi in that last period of
self-examination when, to him, as to other men, consistency seems the
highest virtue. He was, doubtless, striving to compound with his
conscience by emphasizing the adage that the child is father to the
man--that he was born what he had always been.
In 1775, Corsica had been for six years in the possession of France,
and on the surface all was fair. There was, however, a little remnant
of faithful patriots left in the island, with whom Paoli and his
banished friends were still in communication. The royal cabinet,
seeking to remove every possible danger of disturbance, even so slight
a one as lay in the disaffection of the few scattered nationalists,
and in the unconcealed distrust which these felt for their conforming
fellow-citizens, began a little later to make advances, in order, if
possible, to win at least Paoli's neutrality, if not his acquiescence.
All in vain: the exile was not to be moved. From time to time,
therefore, there was throughout Corsica a noticeable flow in the tide
of patriotism. There are indications that the child Napoleon was
conscious of this influence, listening probably with intense interest
to the sympathetic tales about Paoli and his struggles for liberty
which were still told among the people.
As to Charles de Buonaparte, some things he had hoped for from
annexation were secured. His nobility and official rank were safe; he
was in a fair way to reach even higher distinction. But what were
honors without wealth? The domestic means were constantly growing
smaller, while expenditures increased with the accumulating dignities
and ever-growing family. He had made his humble submission to the
French; his reception had been warm and graceful. The authorities knew
of his pretensions to the estates of his ancestors. The Jesuits had
been disgraced and banished, but the much litigated Odone property had
not been restored to him; on the contrary, the buildings had been
converted into school-houses, and the revenues turned into various
channels. Years had passed, and it was evident that his suit was
hopeless. How could substantial advantage be secured from the King?
His friends, General Marbeuf in particular, were of the opinion that
he could profit to a certain extent at least by securing for his
children an education at the expense of the state. While it is likely
that from the first Joseph was destined for the priesthood, yet there
was provision for ecclesiastical training under royal patronage as
well as for secular, and a transfer from the latter to the former was
easier than the reverse. Both were to be placed at the college of
Autun for a preliminary course, whatever their eventual destination
might be. The necessary steps were soon taken, and in 1776 the formal
supplication for the two eldest boys was forwarded to Paris.
Immediately the proof of four noble descents was demanded. The
movement of letters was slow, that of officials even slower, and the
delays in securing copies and authentications of the various documents
were long and vexatious.
Meantime Choiseul had been disgraced, and on May tenth, 1774, the old
King had died; Louis XVI now reigned. The inertia which marked the
brilliant decadence of the Bourbon monarchy was finally overcome. The
new social forces were partly emancipated. Facts were examined, and
their significance considered. Bankruptcy was no longer a threatening
phantom, but a menacing reality of the most serious nature.
Retrenchment and reform were the order of the day. Necker was trying
his promising schemes. There was, among them, one for a body
consisting of delegates from each of the three estates,--nobles,
ecclesiastics, and burgesses,--to assist in deciding that troublesome
question, the regulation of imposts. The Swiss financier hoped to
destroy in this way the sullen, defiant influence of the royal
intendants. In Corsica the governor and the intendant both thought
themselves too shrewd to be trapped, and secured the appointment from
each of the Corsican estates of men who were believed by them to be
their humble servants. The needy suitor, Charles de Buonaparte, was to
be the delegate at Versailles of the nobility. They thought they knew
this man in particular, but he was to prove as malleable in France as
he had been in Corsica.
Though nearly penniless, the noble deputy, with the vanity of the born
courtier, was flattered, and accepted the mission, setting out on
December fifteenth, 1778, by way of Italy with his two sons Joseph and
Napoleon. With them were Joseph Fesch, appointed to the seminary at
Aix, and Varesa, Letitia's cousin, who was to be sub-deacon at Autun.
Joseph and Napoleon both asserted in later life that during their
sojourn in Florence the grand duke gave his friend, their father, a
letter to his royal sister, Marie Antoinette. As the grand duke was at
that time in Vienna, the whole account they give of the journey is
probably, though perhaps not intentionally, untrue. It was not to the
Queen's intercession but to Marbeuf's powerful influence that the
final partial success of Charles de Buonaparte's supplication was due.
This is clearly proven by the evidence of the archives. To the
general's nephew, bishop of Autun, Joseph, now too old to be received
in a royal military school, and later Lucien, were both sent, the
former to be educated as a priest. It was probably Marbeuf's influence
also, combined with a desire to conciliate Corsica, which caused the
herald's office finally to accept the documents attesting the
Buonapartes' nobility.
It appears that the journey from Corsica through Florence and
Marseilles had already wrought a marvelous change in the boy.
Napoleon's teacher at Autun, the Abbé Chardon, described his pupil as
having brought with him a sober, thoughtful character. He played with
no one, and took his walks alone. In all respects he excelled his
brother Joseph. The boys of Autun, says the same authority, on one
occasion brought the sweeping charge of cowardice against all
inhabitants of Corsica, in order to exasperate him. "If they [the
French] had been but four to one," was the calm, phlegmatic answer of
the ten-year-old boy, "they would never have taken Corsica; but when
they were ten to one...." "But you had a fine general--Paoli,"
interrupted the narrator. "Yes, sir," was the reply, uttered with an
air of discontent, and in the very embodiment of ambition; "I should
much like to emulate him." The description of the untamed faun as he
then appeared is not flattering: his complexion sallow, his hair
stiff, his figure slight, his expression lusterless, his manner
insignificant. Moreover, his behavior was sullen, and at first, of
course, he spoke broken French with an Italian accent. Open-mouthed
and with sparkling eyes, however, he listened attentively to the first
rehearsal of his task; repetition he heartily disliked, and when
rebuked for inattention he coldly replied: "Sir, I know that already."
On April twenty-first, 1779, Napoleon, according to the evidence of
his personal memorandum, left Autun, having been admitted to Brienne,
and it was to Marbeuf that in later life he correctly attributed his
appointment. After spending three weeks with a school friend, the
little fellow entered upon his duties about the middle of May.
On New Year's day, 1779, the Buonapartes had arrived at Autun, and for
nearly four months the young Napoleone had been trained in the use of
French. He learned to speak fluently, though not correctly, and wrote
short themes in a way to satisfy his teacher. Prodigy as he was later
declared to have been, his real progress was slow, the difficulties of
that elegant and polished tongue having scarcely been reached; so that
it was with a most imperfect knowledge of their language, and a sadly
defective pronunciation, that he made his appearance among his future
schoolmates. Having, we may suppose, been assigned to the first
vacancy that occurred in any of the royal colleges, his first
destination had been Tiron, the roughest and most remote of the
twelve. But as fortune would have it, a change was somehow made to
Brienne. That establishment was rude enough. The instructors were
Minim priests, and the life was as severe as it could be made with
such a clientage under half-educated and inexperienced monks. In spite
of all efforts to the contrary, however, the place had an air of
elegance; there was a certain school-boy display proportionate to the
means and to the good or bad breeding of the young nobles, also a very
keen discrimination among themselves as to rank, social quality, and
relative importance. Those familiar with the ruthlessness of boys in
their treatment of one another can easily conceive what was the
reception of the newcomer, whose nobility was unknown and unrecognized
in France, and whose means were of the scantiest.
During his son's preparatory studies the father had been busy at
Versailles with further supplications--among them one for a supplement
from the royal purse to his scanty pay as delegate, and another for
the speedy settlement of his now notorious claim. The former of the
two was granted not merely to M. de Buonaparte, but to his two
colleagues, in view of the "excellent behavior"--otherwise
subserviency--of the Corsican delegation at Versailles. When, in
addition, the certificate of Napoleon's appointment finally arrived,
and the father set out to place his son at school, with a barely
proper outfit, he had no difficulty in securing sufficient money to
meet his immediate and pressing necessities.