Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica by John Kendrick Bangs (good non fiction books to read TXT) 📖

donning his uniform.

"It does not set very well in the back," remarked one of the maids of the pension in which he lived, glancing in at the door.

"It does not matter," returned Bonaparte, loftily. "As long as it sets well in front I'm satisfied; for you should know, madame, that a true soldier never shows his back, and that is the kind of a military person I am. A false front would do for me. I am no tin soldier, which in after-years it will interest you to remember. When you are writing your memoirs this will make an interesting anecdote."

From this it is to be inferred that at this time he had no thought of Moscow. Immediately after his appointment Bonaparte repaired to Valence, where his regiment was stationed and where he formed a strong attachment for the young daughter of Madame du Colombier, with whom, history records, he ate cherries before breakfast. This was his sole dissipation at that time, but his felicity was soon to be interrupted. His regiment was ordered to Lyons, and Bonaparte and his love were parted.

"Duty calls me, my dear," he said, on leaving her. "I would stay if I could, but I can't, and, on the whole, it is just as well. If I stayed I should marry you, and that would never do. You cannot support me, nor I you. We cannot live on cherries, and as yet my allowance is an ingrowing one--which is to say that it goes from me to my parent, and not from my parent to me. Therefore, my only love, farewell. Marry some one else. There are plenty of men who are fond of cherries before breakfast, and there is no reason why one so attractive as you should not find a lover."

The unhappy girl was silent for a moment. Then, with an ill- suppressed sob, she bade him go.

"You are right, Napoleon," she said. "Go. Go where duty calls you, and if you get tired of Lyons--"

"Yes?" he interrupted, eagerly.

"Try leopards!" she cried, rushing from his embrace into the house.

Bonaparte never forgave this exhibition of flippancy, though many years after, when he learned that his former love, who had married, as he had bade her do, and suffered, was face to face with starvation, it is said, on the authority of one of his ex-valet's memoirs, that he sent her a box of candied cherries from one of the most expensive confectionery-shops of Paris.

After a brief sojourn at Lyons, Napoleon was summoned with his regiment to quell certain popular tumults at Auxonne. There he distinguished himself as a handler of mobs, and learned a few things that were of inestimable advantage to him later. Speaking of it in after-years, he observed: "It is my opinion, my dear Emperor Joseph, that grape-shot is the only proper medicine for a mob. Some people prefer to turn the hose on them, but none of that for me. They fear water as they do death, but they get over water. Death is more permanent. I've seen many a rioter, made respectable by a good soaking, return to the fray after he had dried out, but in all my experience I have never known a man who was once punctured by a discharge of grape-shot who took any further interest in rioting."

About this time he began to regulate his taciturnity. On occasions he had opinions which he expressed most forcibly. In 1790, having gone to an evening reception at Madame Neckar's, he electrified his hostess and her guests by making a speech of some five hundred words in length, too long to be quoted here in full, but so full of import and delivered with such an air of authority that La Fayette, who was present, paled visibly, and Mirabeau, drawing Madame de Stael to one side, whispered, trembling with emotion, "Who is that young person?"

Whether this newly acquired tendency to break in upon the reserve which had hitherto been the salient feature of his speech had anything to do with it or not we are not aware, but shortly afterwards Napoleon deemed it wise to leave his regiment for a while, and to return to his Corsican home on furlough. Of course an affecting scene was enacted by himself and his family when they were at last reunited. Letitia, his fond mother, wept tears of joy, and Joseph, shaking him by the hand, rushed, overcome with emotion, from the house. Napoleon shortly after found him weeping in the garden.

"Why so sad, Joseph?" he inquired. "Are you sorry I have returned?"

"No, dear Napoleon," said Joseph, turning away his head to hide his tears, "it is not that. I was only weeping because--because, in the nature of things, you will have to go away again, and--the--the idea of parting from you has for the moment upset my equilibrium."

"Then we must proceed to restore it," said Napoleon, and, taking Joseph by the right arm, he twisted it until Joseph said that he felt quite recovered.

Napoleon's stay at Corsica was quite uneventful. Fearing lest by giving way to love of family, and sitting and talking with them in the luxuriously appointed parlor below-stairs, he should imbibe too strong a love for comfort and ease, and thus weaken his soldierly instincts, as well as break in upon that taciturnity which, as we have seen, was the keynote of his character, he had set apart for himself a small room on the attic floor, where he spent most of his time undisturbed, and at the same time made Joseph somewhat easier in his mind.

"When he's up-stairs I am comparatively safe," said Joseph. "If he stayed below with us I fear I should have a return of my nervous prostration."

Meantime, Napoleon was promoted to a first lieutenancy, and shortly after, during the Reign of Terror in Paris, having once more for the moment yielded to an impulse to speak out in meeting, he denounced anarchy in unmeasured terms, and was arrested and taken to Paris.

"It was a fortunate arrest for me," he said. "There I was in Corsica with barely enough money to pay my way back to the capital. Arrested, the State had to pay my fare, and I got back to active political scenes on a free pass. As for the trial, it was a farce, and I was triumphantly acquitted. The jury was out only fifteen minutes. I had so little to say for myself that the judges began to doubt if I had any ideas on any subject--or, as one of them said, having no head to mention, it would be useless to try and cut it off. Hence my acquittal and my feeling that taciturnity is the mother of safety."

Then came the terrible attack of the mob upon the Tuileries on the 20th of June, 1792. Napoleon was walking in the street with Bourrienne when the attack began.

"There's nothing like a lamp-post for an occasion like this, it broadens one's views so," he said, rapidly climbing up a convenient post, from which he could see all that went on. "I didn't know that this was the royal family's reception-day. Do you want to know what I think?"

"Mumm is the word," whispered Bourrienne. "This is no time to have opinions."

"Mumm may be the word, but water is the beverage. Mumm is too dry. What this crowd needs is a good wetting down," retorted Bonaparte. "If I were Louis XVI. I'd turn the hose on these tramps, and keep them at bay until I could get my little brass cannon loaded. When I had that loaded, I'd let them have a few balls hot from the bat. This is what comes of being a born king. Louis doesn't know how to talk to the people. He's all right for a state-dinner, but when it comes to a mass-meeting he is not in it."

And then as the King, to gratify the mob, put the red cap of Jacobinism upon his head, the man who was destined before many years to occupy the throne of France let fall an ejaculation of wrath.

"The wretches!" he cried. "How little they know! They've only given him another hat to talk through! They'll have to do their work all over again, unless Louis takes my advice and travels abroad for his health."

These words were prophetic, for barely two months later the second and most terrible and portentous attack upon the palace took place-- an attack which Napoleon witnessed, as he had witnessed the first, from a convenient lamp-post, and which filled him with disgust and shame; and it was upon that night of riot and bloodshed that he gave utterance to one of his most famous sayings.

"Bourrienne," said he, as with his faithful companions he laboriously climbed the five flights of stairs leading to his humble apartment, "I hate the aristocrats, as you know; and to-day has made me hate the populace as well. What is there left to like?"

"Alas! lieutenant, I cannot say," said Bourrienne, shaking his head sadly.

"What," continued Napoleon, "is the good of anything?"

"I give it up," returned Bourrienne, with a sigh. "I never was good at riddles. What IS the good of anything?"

"Nothing!" said Napoleon, laconically, as he took off his uniform and went to bed.



CHAPTER IV: SARDINIA--TOULON--NICE--PARIS--BARRAS--JOSEPHINE 1793-1796

Greatness now began to dawn for Napoleon. Practically penniless, in a great and heartless city, even the lower classes began to perceive that here was one before whom there lay a brilliant future. Restaurateurs, laundresses, confectioners--all trusted him. An instance of the regard people were beginning to have for him is shown in the pathetic interview between Napoleon and Madame Sans Gene, his laundress.

"Here is your wash, lieutenant," said she, after climbing five flights of stairs, basket in hand, to the miserable lodging of the future Emperor.

Napoleon looked up from his books and counted the clothes.

"There is one sock missing," said he, sternly.

"No," returned Sans Gene. "Half of each sock was washed away, and I sewed the remaining halves into one. One good sock is better than two bad ones. If you ever lose a leg in battle you may find the odd one handy."

"How can I ever repay you?" cried Napoleon, touched by her friendly act.

"I'm sure I don't know," returned Madame Sans Gene, demurely, "unless you will escort me to the Charity Ball--I'll buy the tickets."

"And, pray, what good will that do?" asked Bonaparte.

"It will make Lefebvre jealous," said Madame Sans Gene, "and maybe that will bring him to the point. I want to marry him, but, encourage him as I will, he does not propose, and as in revising the calendar the government has abolished leap-year, I really don't know what to do."

"I cannot go to the ball," said Napoleon, sadly. "I don't dance, and, besides, I have loaned my dress-suit to Bourrienne. But I will flirt with you on the street if you wish, and perhaps that will suffice."

It is hardly necessary to tell the reader that the ruse was successful, and that Lefebvre, thus brought to the point, married Madame Sans Gene, and subsequently, through his own advancement, made her the