Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0003/00034.txt

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$Title{Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte And Life Of Josephine
Chapter I}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Tarbell, Ida M.}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{napoleon
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young
brienne
school
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hear
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}
$Date{1906}
$Log{Hear Young Napoleon*52150015.aud
}
Title:       Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte And Life Of Josephine
Book:        Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte
Author:      Tarbell, Ida M.
Date:        1906

Chapter I

Napoleon's Youth And Early Surroundings - His School Days At Brienne

     "If I were not convinced that his family is as old and as good as my
own," said the Emperor of Austria when he married Marie Louise to Napoleon
Bonaparte, "I would not give him my daughter." The remark is sufficient
recognition of the nobility of the father of Napoleon, Charles Marie de
Bonaparte, a gentleman of Ajaccio, Corsica, whose family, of Tuscan origin,
had settled there in the sixteenth century, and who, in 1765, had married a
young girl of the island, Laetitia Ramolino.

     Monsieur Bonaparte gave his wife a noble name, but little else.  He was
an indolent, pleasure-loving, chimerical man, who had inherited a lawsuit, and
whose time was absorbed in the hopeless task of recovering an estate of which
the Church had taken possession.  Madame Bonaparte brought her husband no
great name, but she did bring him health, beauty, and remarkable qualities.
Tall and imposing, Mademoiselle Laetitia Ramolino had a superb carriage, which
she never lost, and a face which attracted attention particularly by the
accentuation and perfection of its features. She was reserved, but of
ceaseless energy and will, and though but fifteen when married, she conducted
her family affairs with such good sense and firmness that she was able to
bring up decently the eight children spared her from the thirteen she bore.
The habits of order and economy formed in her years of struggle became so
firmly rooted in her character that later, when she became mater regum, the
"Madame Mere" of an imperial court, she could not put them aside, but saved
from the generous income at her disposal, "for those of my children who are
not yet settled," she said. Throughout her life she showed the truth of her
son's characterization: "A man's head on a woman's body."

     The first years after their marriage were stormy ones for the Bonapartes.
The Corsicans, led by the patriot Pascal Paoli, were in revolt against the
French, at that time masters of the island.  Among Paoli's followers was
Charles Bonaparte.  He shared the fortunes of his chief to the end of the
struggle of 1769, and when, finally, Paoli was hopelessly defeated, took to
the mountains.  In all the dangers and miseries of this war and flight,
Charles Bonaparte was accompanied by his wife, who, vigorous of body and brave
of heart, suffered privations, dangers, and fatigue without complaint.  When
the Corsicans submitted, the Bonapartes went back to Ajaccio.  Six weeks later
Madame Bonaparte gave birth to her fourth child, Napoleon.

     "I was born," said Napoleon, "when my country was perishing.  Thirty
thousand Frenchmen were vomited upon our soil.  Cries of the wounded, sighs of
the oppressed, and tears of despair surrounded my cradle at my birth."

[Hear Young Napoleon]
He learned to hate oppression.

     Young Bonaparte learned to hate with the fierceness peculiar to Corsican
blood the idea of oppression, to revere Paoli, and, with a boy's contempt of
necessity, even to despise his father's submission.  It was not strange.  His
mother had little time for her children's training.  His father gave them no
attention; and Napoleon, "obstinate and curious," domineering over his
brothers and companions, fearing no one, ran wild on the beach with the
sailors or over the mountains with the herdsmen, listening to their tales of
the Corsican rebellion and of fights, on sea and land, imbibing their contempt
for submission, their love for liberty.

     At nine years of age he was a shy, proud, wilful child, unkempt and
untrained, little, pale, and nervous, almost without instruction, and yet
already enamored of a soldier's life and conscious of a certain superiority
over his comrades.  Then it was that he was suddenly transplanted from his
free life to an environment foreign in its language, artificial in its
etiquette, and severe in its regulations.

     It was as a dependent, a species of charity pupil, that he went into this
new atmosphere.  Charles Bonaparte had become, in the nine years since he had
abandoned the cause of Paoli, a thorough parasite.  Like all the poor nobility
of the country to which he had attached himself, and even like many of the
rich in that day, he begged favors of every description from the government in
return for his support.  To aid in securing them, he humbled himself before
the French Governor-General of Corsica, the Count de Marboeuf, and made
frequent trips, which he could ill afford, back and forth to Versailles.  The
free education of his children, a good office with its salary and honors, the
maintenance of his claims against the Jesuits, were among the favors which he
sought.

     By dint of solicitation he had secured a place among the free pupils of
the college at Autun for his son Joseph, the oldest of the family, and one for
Napoleon at the military school at Brienne.

     To enter the school at Brienne, it was necessary to be able to read and
write French, and to pass a preliminary examination in that language. This
young Napoleon could not do; indeed, he could scarcely have done as much in
his native Italian.  A preparatory school was necessary, then, for a time.
The place settled on was Autun, where Joseph was to enter college, and there
in January, 1779, Charles Bonaparte arrived with the two boys.

     Napoleon was nine and a half years old when he entered the school at
Autun.  He remained three months, and in that time made sufficient progress to
fulfil the requirements at Brienne.  The principal record of the boy's conduct
at Autun comes from Abbe Chardon, who was at the head of the primary
department.  He says of his pupil:

          "Napoleon brought to Autun a sombre, thoughtful character.
     He was interested in no one, and found his amusements by himself.
     He rarely had a companion in his walks.  He was quick to learn,
     and quick of apprehension in all ways.  When I gave him a lesson,
     he fixed his eyes upon me with parted lips; but if I recapitulated
     anything I had said, his interest was gone, as he plainly showed
     by his manner.  When reproved for this, he would answer coldly,
     I might almost say with an imperious air, 'I know it already, sir.'"

     When he went to Brienne, Napoleon left his brother Joseph behind at
Autun.  The boy had not now one familiar feature in his life.  The school at
Brienne was made up of about one hundred and twenty pupils, half of whom were
supported by the government.  They were sons of nobles, who, generally, had
little but their great names, and whose rule for getting on in the world was
the rule of the old regime - secure a powerful patron, and, by flattery and
servile attentions, continue in his train.  Young Bonaparte heard little but
boasting, and saw little but vanity.  His first lessons in French society were
the doubtful ones of the parasite and courtier.  The motto which he saw
everywhere practised was, "The end justifies the means." His teachers were not
strong enough men to counteract this influence.  The military schools of
France were at this time in the hands of religious orders, and the Minim
Brothers, who had charge of Brienne, were principally celebrated for their
ignorance.  They certainly could not change the arrogant and false notions of
their aristocratic young pupils.

     It was a dangerous experiment to place in such surroundings a boy like
the young Napoleon, proud, ambitious, jealous; lacking any healthful moral
training; possessing an Italian indifference to truth and the rights of
others; already conscious that he had his own way to make in the world, and
inspired by a determination to do it.

     From the first the atmosphere at Brienne was hateful to the boy.  His
comrades were French, and it was the French who had subdued Corsica.  They
taunted him with it sometimes, and he told them that had there been but four
to one, Corsica would never have been conquered, but that the French came ten
to one.  When they said: "But your father submitted," he said bitterly: "I
shall never forgive him for it." As for Paoli, he told them, proudly, "He is a
good man.  I wish I could be like him."

     He had trouble with the new language.  They jeered at him because of it.
His name was strange; la paille au nez was the nickname they made from
Napoleon.

     He was poor; they were rich.  The contemptuous treatment he received
because of his poverty was such that he begged to be taken home.

          "My father [he wrote], if you or my protectors cannot give
     me the means of sustaining myself more honorably in the house
     where I am, please let me return home as soon as possible.  I am
     tired of poverty and of the jeers of insolent scholars who are
     superior to me only in their fortune, for there is not one among
     them who feels one hundredth part of the noble sentiment which
     animates me.  Must your son, sir, continually be the butt of these
     boobies, who, vain of the luxuries which they enjoy, insult me by
     their laughter at the privations which I am forced to endure?  No,
     father, no!  If fortune refuses to smile upon me, take me from
     Brienne, and make me, if you will, a mechanic.  From these words
     you may judge of my despair.  This letter, sir, please believe,
     is not dictated by a vain desire to enjoy extravagant amusements.
     I have no such wish.  I feel simply that it is necessary to show
     my companions that I can procure them as well as they, if I wish
     to do so.

          "Your respectful and affectionate son,

          "Bonaparte."

     Charles Bonaparte, always in pursuit of pleasure and his inheritance,
could not help his son.  Napoleon made other attempts to escape, even offering
himself, it is said, to the British Admiralty as a sailor, and once, at least,
begging Monsieur de Marboeuf, the Governor-General of Corsica, who had aided
Charles Bonaparte in securing places for both boys, to withdraw his
protection.  The incident which led to this was characteristic of the school.
The supercilious young nobles taunted him with his father's position; it was
nothing but that of a poor tipstaff, they said.  Young Bonaparte, stung by
what he thought an insult, attacked his tormentors, and, being caught in the
act, was shut up.  He immediately wrote to the Count de Marboeuf a letter of
remarkable qualities in so young a boy and in such circumstances.  After
explaining the incident he said:

          "Now, Monsieur le Comte, if I am guilty, if my liberty has
     been taken from me justly, have the goodness to add to the
     kindnesses which you have shown me one thing more - take me from
     Brienne and withdraw your protection: it would be robbery on my
     part to keep it any longer from one who deserves it more than I do.
     I shall never, sir, be worthier of it than I am now.  I shall never
     cure myself of an impetuosity which is all the more dangerous
     because I believe its motive is sacred.  Whatever idea of
     self-interest influences me, I shall never have control enough to
     see my father, an honorable man, dragged in the mud.  I shall
     always, Monsieur le Comte, feel too deeply in these circumstances
     to limit myself to complaining to my superior.  I shall always feel
     that a good son ought not to allow another to avenge such an
     outrage.  As for the benefits which you have rained upon me, they
     will never be forgotten.  I shall say I had gained an honorable
     protection, but Heaven denied me the virtues which were necessary
     in order to profit by it."

     In the end Napoleon saw that there was no way for him but to remain at
Brienne, galled by poverty and formalism.

     It would be unreasonable to suppose that there was no relief to this
sombre life.  The boy won recognition more than once from his companions by
his bravery and skill in defending his rights.  He was not only valorous; he
was generous, and, "preferred going to prison himself to denouncing his
comrades who had done wrong." Young Napoleon found, soon, that if there were
things for which he was ridiculed, there were others for which he was
applauded.

     He made friends, particularly among his teachers; and to one of his
comrades, Bourrienne, he remained attached for years.  "You never laugh at me;
you like me," he said to his friend.  Those who found him morose and surly,
did not realize that beneath the reserved, sullen exterior of the little
Corsican boy there was a proud and passionate heart aching for love and
recognition; that it was sensitiveness rather than arrogance which drove him
away from his mates.

     At the end of five and one-half years Napoleon was promoted to the
military school at Paris.  The choice of pupils for this school was made by an
inspector, at this time one Chevalier de Keralio, an amiable old man, who was
fond of mingling with the boys as well as examining them.  He was particularly
pleased with Napoleon, and named him for promotion in spite of his being
strong in nothing but mathematics, and not yet being of the age required by
the regulations.  The teachers protested, but De Keralio insisted.

     "I know what I am doing," he said.  "If I put the rules aside in this
case, it is not to do his family a favor - I do not know them.  It is because
of the child himself.  I have seen a spark here which cannot be too carefully
cultivated."

     De Keralio died before the nominations were made, but his wishes in
regard to young Bonaparte were carried out.  The recommendation which sent him
up is curious.  The notes read:

          "Monsieur de Bonaparte; height four feet, ten inches and ten
     lines; he has passed his fourth examination; good constitution,
     excellent health; submissive character, frank and grateful; regular
     in conduct; has distinguished himself by his application to
     mathematics; is passably well up in history and geography; is
     behindhand in his Latin.  Will make an excellent sailor.  Deserves
     to be sent to the school in Paris."