His father’s death might have come as something of a liberation in one sense: the socially embarrassing and pushy Carlo, with his limited aspirations, fitted ill with Plutarch’s heroes who filled the boy’s imagination, and his obsequious attachment to France even less with the idealised vision of Paoli’s struggle for the liberation of the Corsican nation which had become central to his view of himself. In Napoleone’s imagination, Paoli was now not only a modern-day Plutarchian hero, a role model to be emulated, but also a spiritual father figure.
His obsession with Paoli was mocked by his fellow cadets, as a surviving caricature attests. But his pose as a representative of the heroic nation wronged by France was psychologically convenient for confronting the superior airs of his aristocratic comrades: he could parry their arrogance with self-righteous contempt. Such sparring should not be made too much of, and he only seems to have had one real hate in the school, a cadet by the name of Le Picard de Phélippeaux.24
Napoleone’s friend Laugier de Bellecour had come to the École Militaire from Brienne with him. Le Lieur de Ville sur Arce had left to join his regiment just before Napoleone arrived, but before leaving he had asked his friend Alexandre des Mazis to look out for him, warning him that he was prickly and difficult. Their first meeting bore this out, but the two soon became close. Napoleone found in him ‘someone who understood him, liked him, and to whom he could without constraint uncover his thoughts’, in the words of des Mazis.25
Napoleone hated drill, and his mind would drift, with the result that his was always the last musket to be shouldered or lowered, despite des Mazis nudging him, incurring a sharp ‘Monsieur de Buonaparte, wake up!’ from the drill-master, at whom on one occasion Napoleone threw his musket in a rage. As a result he was made to perform his drill under the supervision of des Mazis. He loved fencing, but was a dangerous sparring partner. He was aggressive and, if touched, would go for his adversary with such fury that he laid himself open to further touches, which made him all the angrier. He often broke his foil, and sometimes the fencing-master would have to separate the combatants.26
The two boys shared an interest in mathematics, and des Mazis admired the way his friend relished the challenge of a mathematical problem. ‘He would not give up until he had overcome every difficulty,’ he recalled. They were taught by Le Paute d’Agelet, a mathematician and astronomer who had circumnavigated the globe with Bougainville, and who enthralled them with his accounts, reviving Napoleone’s naval aspirations. In 1785 he was preparing to set off on a voyage of discovery with the explorer Jean François de La Pérouse, and along with several others Napoleone applied to accompany the expedition. Only one was chosen, and it was not him. The voyage ended in disaster in the South Pacific, and nobody survived.27
As well as mathematics, Napoleone showed a great curiosity about geography and history, and read widely in both. Although he loved literature, he seemed to have little interest in improving his French, and the exasperated French teacher eventually told him not to bother attending his classes. He also showed what one teacher described as ‘an invincible repugnance’ for learning German. But he was generally popular with the teachers, who were impressed by ‘the persistence with which he argued his points’.28
He struck teachers and cadets alike as serious-minded, and was described by one of them as ‘preferring study to every kind of amusement’, interested in literature and ideas, ‘uncommunicative, fond of solitude, capricious, arrogant, extremely self-centred’, ‘having high self-esteem’ and a good deal of ambition. Much of the time he appeared to be in a world of his own, pacing up and down, lost in thought, sometimes gesticulating or laughing to himself.29
According to des Mazis, ‘he groaned at the frivolity of the other pupils’, and disapproved of their ‘depravities’, going so far as to say the school authorities should do more to ‘preserve them from corruption’. This was not driven by religious feelings: he had taken his first Holy Communion at Brienne and was confirmed at the École Militaire, and while he went through the motions, never rebelling against the obligation to hear mass every day, he showed no religious zeal. It probably had more to do with his own awkwardness, which made him dismiss sex as something silly and embarrassing. He later admitted that puberty had made him ‘morose’. This was exacerbated by the behaviour of his friend Laugier de Bellecour, who had found some like-minded young gentlemen at the École Militaire and flaunted his homosexuality. Napoleone admonished him on the subject and declared that they could not remain friends unless Laugier reformed, as he could not countenance such immoral behaviour. When Laugier teased him for a prig he lost his temper and attacked him physically. Napoleone later expressed regret, and often spoke of his former friend ‘with sincere affection’. But a prig he remained.30
In September 1785 he sat the exam to be admitted into the artillery, and passed forty-second out of fifty-eight candidates. All the others had spent two or in some cases four years longer than him preparing for it, so it was not a bad showing. He was posted second lieutenant to the prestigious regiment of La Fère, stationed at Valence. He quickly put together his new uniform, which consisted of a blue coat with red facings and lining, blue waistcoat, red piping and one epaulette. He was so proud of it that he could not resist showing it off to the Permons and other Corsicans in Paris, as he was now allowed out of the school building.31
Des Mazis had been posted to the same regiment, and on 30 October 1785 the two left Paris together. They took a coach as far as Chalon-sur-Saône, where they transferred to the coche d’eau for the rest of the journey to Lyon, and continued by post-boat down the Rhône to Valence. It was the first time the sixteen-year-old Napoleone had been unsupervised, and at one point he exclaimed, ‘At last, I am free!’ and ran around gesticulating wildly.32
4
Valence was a medieval town of tortuous muddy streets dominated by a citadel built to guard the valley of the Rhône and surrounded by fortifications designed by the celebrated engineer Vauban. It had a population of some 5,000, a significant portion of which was accounted for by its fourteen convents, abbeys and priories. Napoleone arrived on 3 November 1785 and took lodgings above a café belonging to Claudine-Marie Bou, a merry and cultivated forty-year-old spinster who washed his linen and looked after his needs. He messed with his fellow officers at the Auberge des Trois Pigeons nearby.1
Second Lieutenant Napolionne de Buonaparte, as he was listed, was placed in command of a company of bombardiers manning mortars and howitzers. He had never handled a piece of ordnance before, and now acquainted himself with the practical aspects of gunnery during frequent exercises on a training ground outside the town. He also had to familiarise himself with the works of the founders of modern French artillery, Generals Gribeauval and Guibert, take more advanced courses in mathematics, trigonometry and geography, and learn how to draw maps and plans.
The regiment of La Fère was one of the most professional in the French army. Its officers were a close-knit family with none of the snobbishness Napoleone had encountered up till now. His messmates included des Mazis and another friend from Brienne, Belly de Bussy, who had joined the regiment a little earlier, and two new ones who were to have distinguished careers, Jean-Ambroise de Lariboisière and Jean-Joseph Sorbier. Napoleone’s company commander was a kindly man who befriended him and invited him to stay at his country house.2
The