“You do not know, then,” replied the First Consul, “that I received my first crown from you. You went to Brienne with the Duke of Orleans to distribute the prizes, and in placing a laurel wreath on my head, you said: ‘May it bring you happiness.’ They say I am a fatalist, Madame, so it is quite plain that I could not forget what you no longer remember;” and the First Consul caused the sixty thousand francs of yearly income left Madame de Montesson by the Duke of Orleans, but confiscated in the Revolution, to be returned. Later, at her request, he raised one of her relatives to the rank of senator. In 1805, when emperor, Napoleon gave a life pension of six thousand francs to the son of his former protector, the Count de Marbœuf, and with it went his assurance of interest and good will in all the circumstances of the young man’s life. Generous, forbearing, even tender remembrance of all who had been associated with him in his early years, was one of Napoleon’s marked characteristics.
His new position at Valence was not brilliant. He had an annual income of two hundred and twenty-four dollars, and there was much hard work. It was independence, however, and life opened gayly to the young officer. He made many acquaintances, and for the first time saw something of society and women. Madame Colombier, whose salon was the leading one of the town, received him, introduced him to powerful friends, and, indeed, prophesied a great future for him.
The sixteen-year-old officer, in spite of his shabby clothes and big boots, became a favorite. He talked brilliantly and freely, began to find that he could please, and, for the first time, made love a little—to Mademoiselle Colombier—a frolicking boy-and-girl love, the object of whose stolen rendezvous was to eat cherries together. Mademoiselle Mion-Desplaces, a pretty Corsican girl in Valence, also received some attention from him. Encouraged by his good beginning, and ambitious for future success, he even began to take dancing lessons.
BONAPARTE AT VALENCE.
Had there been no one but himself to think of, everything would have gone easily, but the care of his family was upon him. His father had died a few months before, February, 1785, and left his affairs in a sad tangle. Joseph, now nearly eighteen years of age, who had gone to Autun in 1779 with Napoleon, had remained there until 1785. The intention was to make him a priest; suddenly he declared that he would not be anything but a soldier. It was to undo all that had been done for him; but his father made an effort to get him into a military school. Before the arrangements were complete Charles Bonaparte died, and Joseph was obliged to return to Corsica, where he was powerless to do anything for his mother and for the four young children at home: Louis, aged nine; Pauline, seven; Caroline, five; Jerome, three.
Lucien, now nearly eleven years old, was at Brienne, refusing to become a soldier, as his family desired, and giving his time to literature; but he was not a free pupil, and the six hundred francs a year needful for him was a heavy tax. Eliza alone was provided for. She had entered St. Cyr in 1784 as one of the two hundred and fifty pupils supported there by his Majesty, and to be a demoiselle de St. Cyr was to be fed, taught, and clothed from seven to twenty, and, on leaving, to receive a dowry of three thousand francs, a trousseau, and one hundred and fifty francs for travelling expenses home.
Napoleon regarded his family’s situation more seriously than did his brothers. Indeed, when at Brienne he had shown an interest, a sense of responsibility, and a good judgment about the future of his brothers and sisters, quite amazing in so young a boy. When he was fifteen years old, he wrote a letter to his uncle, which, for its keen analysis, would do credit to the father of a family. The subject was his brother Joseph’s desire to abandon the Church and go into the king’s service. Napoleon is summing up the pros and cons:
“First. As father says, he has not the courage to face the perils of an action; his health is feeble, and will not allow him to support the fatigues of a campaign; and my brother looks on the military profession only from a garrison point of view. He would make a good garrison officer. He is well made, light-minded, knows how to pay compliments, and with these talents he will always get on well in society.
“Second. He has received an ecclesiastical education, and it is very late to undo that. Monseignor the Bishop of Autun would have given him a fat living, and he would have been sure to become a bishop. What an advantage for the family! Monseignor of Autun has done all he could to encourage him to persevere, promising that he should never repent. Should he persist, in wishing to be a soldier, I must praise him, provided he has a decided taste for his profession, the finest of all, and the great motive power of human affairs.... He wishes to be a military man. That is all very well; but in what corps? Is it the marine? First: He knows nothing of mathematics; it would take him two years to learn. Second: His health is incompatible with the sea. Is it the engineers? He would require four or five years to learn what is necessary, and at the end of that time he would be only a cadet. Besides, working all day long would not suit him. The same reasons which apply to the engineers apply to the artillery, with this exception: that he would have to work eighteen months to become a cadet, and eighteen months more to become an officer.... No doubt he wishes to join the infantry.... And what is the slender infantry officer? Three-fourths of the time a scapegrace.... A last effort will be made to persuade him to enter the Church, in default of which, father will take him to Corsica, where he will be under his eye.”
It was not strange that Charles Bonaparte considered the advice of a son who could write so clear-headed a letter as the one just quoted, or that the boy’s uncle Lucien said, before dying: “Remember, that if Joseph is the older, Napoleon is the real head of the house.”
Now that young Bonaparte was in an independent position, he felt still more keenly his responsibility, and it was for this reason, as well as because of ill health, that he left his regiment in February, 1787, on a leave which he extended to nearly fifteen months, and which he spent in energetic efforts to better his family’s situation, working to reëstablish salt works and a mulberry plantation in which they were concerned, to secure the nomination of Lucien to the college at Aix, and to place Louis at a French military school.
When he went back to his regiment, now stationed at Auxonne, he denied himself to send money home, and spent his leisure in desperate work, sleeping but six hours, eating but one meal a day, dressing once in the week. Like all the young men of the country who had been animated by the philosophers and encyclopedists, he had attempted literature, and at this moment was finishing a history of Corsica, a portion of which he had written at Valence and submitted to the Abbé Raynal, who had encouraged him to go on. The manuscript was completed and ready for publication in 1788, and the author made heroic efforts to find some one who would accept a dedication, as well as some one who would publish it. Before he had succeeded, events had crowded the work out of sight, and other ambitions occupied his forces. Napoleon had many literary projects on hand at this time. He had been a prodigious reader, and was never so happy as when he could save a few cents with which to buy second-hand books. From everything he read he made long extracts, and kept a book of “thoughts.” Most curious are some of these fragments, reflections on the beginning of society, on love, on nature. They show that he was passionately absorbed in forming ideas on the great questions of life and its relations.
Besides his history of Corsica, he had already written several fragments, among them an historical drama called the “Count of Essex,” and a story, the “Masque Prophète.” He undertook, too, to write a sentimental journey in the style of Sterne, describing a trip from Valence to Mont Cenis. Later he competed for a prize offered by the Academy of Lyons on the subject: “To determine what truths and feelings should be inculcated in men for their happiness.” He failed in the contest; indeed, the essay was severely criticised for its incoherency and poor style.
The Revolution of 1789 turned Napoleon’s mind to an ambition greater than that of writing the history of Corsica—he