7. Lieutenant Napoleon Bonaparte

While the Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais was, during long years of resignation, enduring all the anguish, humiliations, and agonies of an unhappy marriage, the first pain and sorrow had also clouded the days of the young Corsican boy who, in the same year as Josephine, had embarked from his native land for France.

In the beginning of the year 1785, Napoleon Bonaparte had lost his father. In Montpellier, whither he had come for the cure of his diseased breast, he died, away from home, from his Letitia and his children. Only his eldest son Joseph stood near his dying couch, and, moreover, a fortunate accident had brought to pass that the poor, lonely sufferer should meet there a friendly home, where he was received with the most considerate affection. Letitia's companion of youth, the beautiful Panonia Comnene, now Madame de Permont, resided in Montpellier with her husband, who was settled there, and with all the faithfulness and friendship of a Corsican, she nursed the sick husband of her Letitia.

But neither the skill of the renowned physicians of Montpellier, nor the tender care of friends, nor the tears of the son, could keep alive the unfortunate Charles de Bonaparte. For three days long he struggled with death; for three days long his youth, his manhood's powers, resisted the mighty foe, which already held him in its chains; then he had to submit to the conqueror. Exhausted with death's pallor, Charles de Bonaparte sank back on his couch, and as Death threw his dark shadows on his face bathed in cold perspiration, Charles de Bonaparte, with stammering tongue, in the last paroxysms of fancy, exclaimed: "It is in vain! Nothing can save me! Even Napoleon's sword, which one day is to triumph over ail Europe, even that sword cannot frighten away the dragon of death which crouches on my breast!" [Footnote: See "Memoires du Roi Joseph," vol. i., p. 29.]

Wonderful vision of a dying man! The dimmed eye of the dying father saw his son Napoleon's sword, "which one day was to triumph over all Europe;" as he prophesied its power, he sighed at the same time over the impotency which holds all mankind in its bands, and leaves even the hero as a powerless child in the hands of fate. The sword which was to be a yoke to all Europe could not terrify from the breast of his father the dragon of death!

Napoleon received the news of his father's decease whilst at the military school of Paris, where he had been placed for the last six months, to the joy and satisfaction of his teachers as well as to that of his schoolmates in Brienne. For the reserved, taciturn, proud boy, who, rugged and blunt, stood aloof from his comrades, who even dared speak rude and bitter words against his teachers and against the whole military institution at Brienne, was oftentimes an inconvenience and a burden as well to teachers as to schoolmates; and all felt relieved, as from a depressing weight, when they no more feared the naming eyes of the boy who observed every thing, who criticised every thing, and passed judgment upon every thing.

But if he was not loved, it was impossible to refuse esteem to his capacity, to his desire for learning; and the testimony which Monsieur de Heralio, the principal of the institution of Brienne, sent with the young Napoleon to Paris, was a tribute of respect and an acknowledgment of merit. He portrayed him "as having an extremely capacious head, especially skilled in mathematics, and of great powers and talents." As to his character, one of the professors of the institution had in the testimonial written the remark: "A Corsican by birth and character. He will do great things, if circumstances are favorable."

But circumstances did not appear favorable/but contrariwise seemed to bo roused in enmity against the poor Corsican boy. He had been scarcely half a year in Paris when he lost his father, and this grief, of which not a murmur escaped, which he kept within, devouring his heart, as every thing else which affected him, made his existence still more reserved, still more retired, and isolated him more and more. Moreover, death had not only taken away the father, but also the support which Napoleon received from him. The means of the Bonaparte family were very meagre, and barely sufficed to the support of Signora Letitia and her seven children. Napoleon could not and dared not require or accept any help from his mother, on whom and on his brother Joseph it became incumbent to educate and support the young family. He had to be satisfied to live upon the bounty which the royal treasury furnished to the young men at the military school.

But these limited means were to the ambitious boy a source of humiliation and pain. The majority of his comrades consisted of young aristocrats, who, provided with ample means, led a gay, luxurious, dissipated life, had horses, servants, equipages, kept up one with another expensive dinner-parties and dejeuners, and seized every opportunity to organize a festivity or a pleasure-party. Every departure, every admission of a scholar, was celebrated with brilliant display; every birthday furnished the opportunity of a feast, and every holiday became the welcomed occasion for a pleasure excursion which the young men on horseback, and followed by their servants in livery, made in the vicinity of Paris.

Napoleon could take no part in all these feastings and dissipations; and as his proud heart could not acknowledge his poverty, he put on the mask of a stoic, who, with contemptuous disregard, cast away vain pleasures and amusements, and scorned those who with unrestrained zest abandoned themselves to them.

He had scarcely been half a year in the military school when he gave loud expression to his jealousy and envy; the young Napoleon, nearly sixteen years old, undertook boldly to censure in the very presence of the teachers the regulations of the institution. In a memorial which he had composed, and which he presented to the second director of the establishment, M. Berton, he gave utterance to his own views in the most energetic and daring manner, imposing upon the professors the duty of making a complete change in the institution; of limiting the number of servants, so that the military pupils might learn to wait upon themselves; of simplifying the noonday meal, so as to accustom them to moderation; of forbidding banquets, dejeuners, and pleasure-excursions, so that they might not become inured to a frivolous, extravagant mode of life.

This mask of a censuring stoic, which he put on in the presence of teachers and school-mates, he retained also with his few friends. Madame de Permont, a short time after the death of Napoleon's father, came with her family to Paris, where her husband had obtained an important and lucrative office; her son Albert attended the military school and was soon the friend of Napoleon, as much as a friendship could be formed between the young, lively M. de Permont, the son of wealthy and distinguished parents, and the reserved, proud Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of a poor, lonely widow.

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