The Life of Napoleon I | Page 4

22, 1792, was not
introduced until Nov. 26, 1793 (An II). It ceased after Dec. 31, 1805.
The months are as follows:

Vendémiaire Sept. 22 to Oct. 21. Brumaire Oct. 22 " Nov. 20. Frimaire
Nov. 21 " Dec. 20. Nivôse Dec. 21 " Jan. 19. Pluviôse Jan. 20 " Feb. 18.
Ventôse Feb. 19 " Mar. 20. Germinal Mar. 21 " April 19. Floréal April
20 " May 19. Prairial May 20 " June 18. Messidor June 19 " July 18.
Thermidor July 19 " Aug. 17. Fructidor Aug. 18 " Sept. 16.
Add five (in leap years six) "Sansculottides" or "Jours
complémentaires."
In 1796 (leap year) the numbers in the table of months, so far as
concerns all dates between Feb. 28 and Sept. 22, will have to be
reduced by one, owing to the intercalation of Feb. 29, which is not
compensated for until the end of the republican year.
The matter is further complicated by the fact that the republicans
reckoned An VIII as a leap year, though it is not one in the Gregorian
Calendar. Hence that year ended on Sept. 22, and An IX and
succeeding years began on Sept. 23. Consequently in the above table of
months the numbers of all days from Vendémiaire 1, An IX (Sept. 23,
1800), to Nivôse 10, An XIV (Dec. 31, 1805), inclusive, will have to be
increased by one, except only in the next leap year between Ventôse 9,
An XII, and Vendémiaire 1, An XIII (Feb. 28-Sept, 23, 1804), when
the two Revolutionary aberrations happen to neutralize each other.
* * * * *

THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON I
CHAPTER I
PARENTAGE AND EARLY YEARS
"I was born when my country was perishing. Thirty thousand French
vomited upon our coasts, drowning the throne of Liberty in waves of
blood, such was the sight which struck my eyes." This passionate
utterance, penned by Napoleon Buonaparte at the beginning of the

French Revolution, describes the state of Corsica in his natal year. The
words are instinct with the vehemence of the youth and the extravagant
sentiment of the age: they strike the keynote of his career. His life was
one of strain and stress from his cradle to his grave.
In his temperament as in the circumstances of his time the young
Buonaparte was destined for an extraordinary career. Into a tottering
civilization he burst with all the masterful force of an Alaric. But he
was an Alaric of the south, uniting the untamed strength of his island
kindred with the mental powers of his Italian ancestry. In his
personality there is a complex blending of force and grace, of animal
passion and mental clearness, of northern common sense with the
promptings of an oriental imagination; and this union in his nature of
seeming opposites explains many of the mysteries of his life.
Fortunately for lovers of romance, genius cannot be wholly analyzed,
even by the most adroit historical philosophizer or the most exacting
champion of heredity. But in so far as the sources of Napoleon's power
can be measured, they may be traced to the unexampled needs of
mankind in the revolutionary epoch and to his own exceptional
endowments. Evidently, then, the characteristics of his family claim
some attention from all who would understand the man and the
influence which he was to wield over modern Europe.
It has been the fortune of his House to be the subject of dispute from
first to last. Some writers have endeavoured to trace its descent back to
the Cæsars of Rome, others to the Byzantine Emperors; one
genealogical explorer has tracked the family to Majorca, and, altering
its name to Bonpart, has discovered its progenitor in the Man of the
Iron Mask; while the Duchesse d'Abrantès, voyaging eastwards in quest
of its ancestors, has confidently claimed for the family a Greek origin.
Painstaking research has dispelled these romancings of historical
trouveurs, and has connected this enigmatic stock with a Florentine
named "William, who in the year 1261 took the surname of Bonaparte
or Buonaparte. The name seems to have been assumed when, amidst
the unceasing strifes between Guelfs and Ghibellines that rent the civic
life of Florence, William's party, the Ghibellines, for a brief space
gained the ascendancy. But perpetuity was not to be found in Florentine

politics; and in a short time he was a fugitive at a Tuscan village,
Sarzana, beyond the reach of the victorious Guelfs. Here the family
seems to have lived for well nigh three centuries, maintaining its
Ghibelline and aristocratic principles with surprising tenacity. The age
was not remarkable for the virtue of constancy, or any other virtue.
Politics and private life were alike demoralized by unceasing intrigues;
and amidst strifes of Pope and Emperor, duchies and republics, cities
and autocrats, there was formed