Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica | Page 8

himself well in hand, biding the time when
he could repay their insults with interest. They jeered him because he
was short--short of stature and short of funds; they twitted him on being
an alien, calling him an Italian, and asking him why he did not seek out
a position in the street-cleaning bureau instead of endeavoring to
associate with gentlemen. To this the boy made a spirited reply.
"I am fitting myself for that," he said. "I'll sweep your Parisian streets
some day, and some of you particles will go with the rest of the dust
before my broom."
He little guessed how prophetic were these words.
Again, they tormented Napoleon on being the son of a lawyer, and
asked him who his tailor was, and whether or not his garments were the
lost suits of his father's clients, the result of which was that, though
born of an aristocratic family, the boy became a pronounced
Republican, and swore eternal enmity to the high-born. Another result
of this attitude towards him was that he retired from the companionship
of all save his books, and he became intimate with Homer and Ossian
and Plutarch--familiar with the rise and fall of emperors and empires.
Challenged to fight a duel with one of his classmates for a
supposititious insult, he accepted, and, having the choice in weapons,
chose an examination in mathematics, the one first failing in a
demonstration to blow his brains out. "That is the safer for you," he
said to his adversary. "You are sure to lose; but the after-effects will not
be fatal, because you have no brains to blow out, so you can blow out a
candle instead."
Whatever came of the duel we are not informed; but it is to be
presumed that it did not result fatally for young Bonaparte, for he lived
many years after the incident, as most of our readers are probably
aware. Had he not done so, this biography would have had to stop here,
and countless readers of our own day would have been deprived of
much entertaining fiction that is even now being scattered broadcast
over the world with Napoleon as its hero. His love of books combined
with his fondness for military life was never more beautifully expressed

than when he wrote to his mother: "With my sword at my side and my
Homer in my pocket, I hope to carve my way through the world."
The beauty and simplicity of this statement is not at all affected by
Joseph's flippant suggestion that by this Napoleon probably meant that
he would read his enemies to sleep with his Homer, and then use his
sword to cut their heads off. Joseph, as we have already seen, had been
completely subjugated by his younger brother, and it is not to be
wondered at, perhaps, that, with his younger brother at a safe distance,
he should manifest some jealousy, and affect to treat his sentiments
with an unwarranted levity.
For Napoleon's self-imposed solitude everything at Brienne arranged
itself propitiously. Each of the students was provided with a small
patch of ground which he could do with as he pleased, and Napoleon's
use of his allotted share was characteristic. He converted it into a
fortified garden, surrounded by trees and palisades.
"Now I can mope in peace," he said--and he did.
It has been supposed by historians that it was here that Napoleon did all
of his thinking, mapping out his future career, and some of them have
told us what he thought. He dreamed of future glory always, one of
them states; but whether upon the authority of a palisade or a tiger-lily
is not mentioned. Others have given us his soliloquies as he passed to
and fro in this little retreat alone, and heard only by the stars at night;
but for ourselves, we must be accurate, and it is due to the reader at this
point that we should confess--having no stars in our confidence--our
entire ignorance as to what Napoleon Bonaparte said, did, or thought
when sitting in solitude in his fortified bower; though if our candid
impression is desired we have no hesitation in saying that we believe
him to have been in Paris enjoying the sights of the great city during
those periods of solitude. Boys are boys in all lands, and a knowledge
of that peculiar species of human beings, the boarding-school boy, is
convincing that, given a prospect of five or six hours of uninterrupted
solitude, no youth of proper spirit would fail to avail himself of the
opportunities thus offered to see life, particularly with a city like Paris
within easy "hooky" distance.
It must also be remembered that the French had at this time abolished
the hereafter, along with the idea of a