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
Fère -- 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 "Époques 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'école
de Paris, le 30 Octobre 1784" is perfectly legible. Las
Cases, in the Mémorial, 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
Abrantès. Although born in Corsica, she belonged to a branch of the
noble Greek family of the Comneni. In view of the stringent
regulations both of the military school and of Saint-Cyr, these visits
are problematical, though not impossible.
Rigid as were the regulations of the royal establishments, their
enforcement depended of course on the character of their directors.
The marquis who presided over the military school was a veteran
place-holder, his assistant was a man of no force, and the director of
studies was the only conscientious official of the three. He knew his
charge thoroughly and was recognized by Napoleon in later years as a
man of worth. The course of studies was a continuation of that at
Brienne, and there were twenty-one instructors in the various branches
of mathematics, history, geography, and languages. De l'Esguille
endorsed one of Buonaparte's exercises in history with the remark:
"Corsican by nation and character. He will go far if circumstances
favor." Domairon said of his French style that it was "granite heated
in a volcano." There were admirable masters, seven in number, for
riding, fencing, and dancing. In none of these exercises did
Buonaparte excel. It was the avowed purpose of the institution to make
its pupils pious Roman Catholics. The parish priest at Brienne had
administered the sacraments to a number of the boys, including the
young Corsican, who appears to have submitted without cavil to the
severe religious training of the Paris school: chapel with mass at
half-past six in the morning, grace before and after all meals, and
chapel again a quarter before nine in the evening; on holidays,
catechism for new students; Sundays, catechism and high mass, and
vespers with confession every Saturday; communion every two months.
Long afterwards the Emperor remembered de Juigné, his chaplain, with
kindness and overwhelmed him with favors. Of the hundred and
thirty-two scholars resident during Buonaparte's time, eighty-three
were boarders at four hundred dollars each; none of these attained
distinction, the majority did not even pass their examinations. The
rest were scholars of the King, and were diligent; but even of these
only one or two were really able men.
It was in the city of Mme. Permon's residence, at Montpellier, that on
the twenty-fourth of February, 1785, Charles de Buonaparte died. This
was apparently a final and mortal blow to the Buonaparte fortunes, for
it seemed as if with the father must go all the family expectations.
The circumstances were a fit close to the life thus ended. Feeling his
health somewhat restored, and despairing of further progress in the
settlement of his well-worn claim by legal methods, he had determined
on still another journey of solicitation to Versailles. With Joseph as
a companion he started; but a serious relapse occurred at sea, and
ashore the painful disease continued to make such ravages that the
father and son set out for Montpellier to consult the famous
specialists of the medical faculty at that place. It was in vain, and,
after some weeks, on February twenty-fourth the heartbroken father
breathed his last. Having learned to hate the Jesuits, he had become
indifferent to all religion, and is said by some to have repelled with
his last exertions the kindly services of Fesch, who was now a
frocked priest, and had hastened to his brother-in-law's bedside to
offer the final consolations of the Church to a dying man. Others
declare that he turned again to the solace of religion, and was
attended on his death-bed by the Abbé Coustou. Joseph, prostrated by
grief, was taken into Mme. Permon's house and received the tenderest
consolation.[8]
[Footnote 8: Mémoires 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. Phélipeaux thwarted him at Acre; Picot de Peccaduc became
Schwarzenberg's most trusted adviser in the successful campaigns of
Austria against France.
Whether to alleviate as soon as possible the miseries of his
destitution, or, as has been charged, to be rid of their querulous and
exasperating inmate, the authorities of the military school shortened
Buonaparte's stay to the utmost of their ability, and admitted him to
examination in August, 1785, less than a year from his admission.[9]
He passed with no distinction, being forty-second in rank, but above
his friend des Mazis, who was fifty-sixth. His appointment,
therefore, was due to an entire absence of rivalry, the young nobility
having no predilection for the arduous duties of service in the
artillery. He was eligible merely because he had passed the legal age,
and had given evidence of sufficient acquisitions. In an oft-quoted
description,[10] purporting to be an official certificate given to the
young officer on leaving, he is characterized as reserved and
industrious, preferring study to any kind of amusement, delighting in
good authors, diligent in the abstract sciences, caring little for the
others,[11] thoroughly trained in mathematics and geography; quiet,
fond of solitude, capricious, haughty, extremely inclined to egotism,
speaking little, energetic in his replies, prompt and severe in
repartee; having much self-esteem; ambitious and aspiring to any
height: "the youth is worthy of protection." There is, unfortunately,
no documentary evidence to sustain the genuineness of this report; but
whatever its origin, it is so nearly contemporary that it probably
contains some truth.
[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:
Napoléon 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 Fère. Des Mazis had a
brother in it; the ardent young Corsican would be nearer his native
land, and might, perhaps, be detached for service in his home. They
were both nominated in September, but the appointment was not made
until the close of October. Buonaparte was reduced to utter penury by
the long delay, his only resource being the two hundred livres
provided by the funds of the school for each of its pupils until they
reached the grade of captain. It was probably, and according to the
generally received account, at his comrade's expense, and in his
company, that he traveled. Their slender funds were exhausted by
boyish dissipation at Lyons, and they measured on foot the long
leagues thence to their destination, arriving at Valence early in
November.
The growth of absolutism in Europe had been due at the outset to the
employment of standing armies by the kings, and the consequent
alliance between the crown, which was the paymaster, and the people,
who furnished the soldiery. There was constant conflict between the
crown and the nobility concerning privilege, constant friction between
the nobility and the people in the survivals of feudal relation. This
sturdy and wholesome contention among the three estates ended at last
in the victory of the kings. In time, therefore, the army became no
longer a mere support to the monarchy, but a portion of its moral
organism, sharing its virtues and its vices, its weakness and its
strength, reflecting, as in a mirror, the true condition of the state
so far as it was personified in the king. The French army, in the year
1785, was in a sorry plight. With the consolidation of classes in an
old monarchical society, it had come to pass that, under the
prevailing voluntary system, none but men of the lowest social stratum
would enlist. Barracks and camps became schools of vice. "Is there,"
exclaimed one who at a later day was active in the work of army
reform--"is there a father who does not shudder when abandoning his
son, not to the chances of war, but to the associations of a crowd of
scoundrels a thousand times more dangerous?"
We have already had a glimpse of the character of the officers. Their
first thought was social position and pleasure, duty and the practice
of their profession being considerations of almost vanishing
importance. Things were quite as bad in the central administration.
Neither the organization nor the equipment nor the commissariat was in
condition to insure accuracy or promptness in the working of the
machine. The regiment of La Fère was but a sample of the whole.
"Dancing three times a week," says the advertisement for recruits,
"rackets twice, and the rest of the time skittles, prisoners' base,
and drill. Pleasures reign, every man has the highest pay, and all are
well treated." Buonaparte's income, comprising his pay of eight
hundred, his provincial allowance of a hundred and twenty, and the
school pension of two hundred, amounted, all told, to eleven hundred
and twenty livres a year; his necessary expenses for board and lodging
were seven hundred and twenty, leaving less than thirty-five livres a
month, about seven dollars, for clothes and pocket money. Fifteen
years as lieutenant, fifteen as captain, and, for the rest of his
life, half pay with a decoration--such was the summary of the prospect
before the ordinary commonplace officer in a like situation. Meantime
he was comfortably lodged with a kindly old soul, a sometime
tavern-keeper named Bou, whose daughter, "of a certain age," gave a
mother's care to the young lodger. In his weary years of exile the
Emperor recalled his service at Valence as invaluable. The artillery
regiment of La Fère he said was unsurpassed in personnel and training;
though the officers were too old for efficiency, they were loyal and
fatherly; the youngsters exercised their witty sarcasm on many, but
they loved them all.
During the first months of his garrison service Buonaparte, as an
apprentice, saw arduous service in matters of detail, but he threw off
entirely the darkness and reserve of his character, taking a full
draught from the brimming cup of pleasure. On January tenth, 1786, he
was finally received to full standing as lieutenant. The novelty, the
absence of restraint, the comparative emancipation from the arrogance
and slights to which he had hitherto been subject, good news from the
family in Corsica, whose hopes as to the inheritance were once more
high--all these elements combined to intoxicate for a time the boy of
sixteen. The strongest will cannot forever repress the exuberance of
budding manhood. There were balls, and with them the first experience
of gallantry. The young officer even took dancing-lessons. Moreover,
in the drawing-rooms of the Abbé Saint-Ruf and of his friends, for the
first time he saw the manners and heard the talk of refined
society--provincial, to be sure, but excellent. It was to the special
favor of Monseigneur de Marbeuf, the bishop of Autun, that he owed his
warm reception. The acquaintances there made were with persons of
local consequence, who in later years reaped a rich harvest for their
condescension to the young stranger. In two excellent households he
was a welcome and intimate guest, that of Lauberie and Colombier.
There were daughters in both. His acquaintance with Mlle. de Lauberie
was that of one who respected her character and appreciated her
beauty. In 1805 she was appointed lady in waiting to the Empress, but
declined the appointment because of her duties as wife and mother. In
the intimacy with Mlle. du Colombier there was more coquetry. She was
a year the senior and lived on her mother's estate some miles from the
town. Rousseau had made fashionable long walks and life in the open.
The frequent visits of Napoleon to Caroline were marked by youthful
gaiety and budding love. They spent many innocent hours in the fields
and garden of the château and parted with regret. Their friendship
lasted even after she became Mme. de Bressieux, and they corresponded
intimately for long years. Of his fellow-officers he saw but little,
though he ate regularly at the table of the "Three Pigeons" where the
lieutenants had their mess. This was not because they were distant,
but because he had no genius for good-fellowship, and the habit of
indifference to his comrades had grown strong upon him.
The period of pleasure was not long. It is impossible to judge whether
the little self-indulgence was a weak relapse from an iron purpose or
part of a definite plan. The former is more likely, so abrupt and
apparently conscience-stricken was the return to labor. His
inclinations and his earnest hope were combined in a longing for
Corsica.[12] It was a bitter disappointment that under the army
regulations he must serve a year as second lieutenant before leave
could be granted. As if to compensate himself and still his longings
for home and family, he sought the companionship of a young Corsican
artist named Pontornini, then living at Tournon, a few miles distant.
To this friendship we owe the first authentic portrait of Buonaparte.
It exhibits a striking profile with a well-shaped mouth, and the
expression of gravity is remarkable in a sitter so young. The face
portrays a studious mind. Even during the months from November to
April he had not entirely deserted his favorite studies, and again
Rousseau had been their companion and guide. In a little study of
Corsica, dated the twenty-sixth of April, 1786, the earliest of his
manuscript papers, he refers to the Social Contract of Rousseau with
approval, and the last sentence is: "Thus the Corsicans were able, in
obedience to all the laws of justice, to shake off the yoke of Genoa,
and can do likewise with that of the French. Amen." But in the spring
it was the then famous but since forgotten Abbé Raynal of whom he
became a devotee. At the first blush it seems as if Buonaparte's
studies were irregular and haphazard. It is customary to attribute
slender powers of observation and undefined purposes to childhood and
youth. The opinion may be correct in the main, and would, for the
matter of that, be true as regards the great mass of adults. But the
more we know of psychology through autobiographies, the more certain
it appears that many a great life-plan has been formed in childhood,
and carried through with unbending rigor to the end. Whether
Buonaparte consciously ordered the course of his study and reading or
not, there is unity in it from first to last.
[Footnote 12: For an amusing caricature by a comrade at
Paris, see Chuquet: La jeunesse de Napoléon, 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.