The Life of Napoleon I | Page 6

all the powers of this tough
stock. In the middle of the eighteenth century we find the head of the
family, Charles Marie Buonaparte, aglow with the flame of Corsican
patriotism then being kindled by the noble career of Paoli. This gifted
patriot, the champion of the islanders, first against the Genoese and
later against the French, desired to cement by education the framework
of the Corsican Commonwealth and founded a university. It was here
that the father of the future French Emperor received a training in law,
and a mental stimulus which was to lift his family above the level of
the caporali and attorneys with whom its lot had for centuries been cast.
His ambition is seen in the endeavour, successfully carried out by his
uncle, Lucien, Archdeacon of Ajaccio, to obtain recognition of kinship
with the Buonapartes of Tuscany who had been ennobled by the Grand
Duke. His patriotism is evinced in his ardent support of Paoli, by whose
valour and energy the Genoese were finally driven from the island.
Amidst these patriotic triumphs Charles confronted his destiny in the
person of Letizia Ramolino, a beautiful girl, descended from an
honourable Florentine family which had for centuries been settled in
Corsica. The wedding took place in 1764, the bridegroom being then
eighteen, and the bride fifteen years of age. The union, if rashly
undertaken in the midst of civil strifes, was yet well assorted. Both
parties to it were of patrician, if not definitely noble descent, and came
of families which combined the intellectual gifts of Tuscany with the
vigour of their later island home[3]. From her mother's race, the Pietra
Santa family, Letizia imbibed the habits of the most backward and
savage part of Corsica, where vendettas were rife and education was
almost unknown. Left in ignorance in her early days, she yet was

accustomed to hardships, and often showed the fertility of resource
which such a life always develops. Hence, at the time of her marriage,
she possessed a firmness of will far beyond her years; and her strength
and fortitude enabled her to survive the terrible adversities of her early
days, as also to meet with quiet matronly dignity the extraordinary
honours showered on her as the mother of the French Emperor. She
was inured to habits of frugality, which reappeared in the personal
tastes of her son. In fact, she so far retained her old parsimonious habits,
even amidst the splendours of the French Imperial Court, as to expose
herself to the charge of avarice. But there is a touching side to all this.
She seems ever to have felt that after the splendour there would come
again the old days of adversity, and her instincts were in one sense
correct. She lived on to the advanced age of eighty-six, and died
twenty-one years after the break-up of her son's empire--a striking
proof of the vitality and tenacity of her powers.
A kindly Providence veiled the future from the young couple. Troubles
fell swiftly upon them both in private and in public life. Their first two
children died in infancy. The third, Joseph, was born in 1768, when the
Corsican patriots were making their last successful efforts against their
new French oppressors: the fourth, the famous Napoleon, saw the light
on August 15th, 1769, when the liberties of Corsica were being finally
extinguished. Nine other children were born before the outbreak of the
French Revolution reawakened civil strifes, amidst which the then
fatherless family was tossed to and fro and finally whirled away to
France.
Destiny had already linked the fortunes of the young Napoleon
Buonaparte with those of France. After the downfall of Genoese rule in
Corsica, France had taken over, for empty promises, the claims of the
hard-pressed Italian republic to its troublesome island possession. It
was a cheap and practical way of restoring, at least in the
Mediterranean the shattered prestige of the French Bourbons. They had
previously intervened in Corsican affairs on the side of the Genoese.
Yet in 1764 Paoli appealed to Louis XV. for protection. It was granted,
in the form of troops that proceeded quietly to occupy the coast towns
of the island under cover of friendly assurances. In 1768, before the

expiration of an informal truce, Marbeuf, the French commander,
commenced hostilities against the patriots[4]. In vain did Rousseau and
many other champions of popular liberty protest against this bartering
away of insular freedom: in vain did Paoli rouse his compatriots to
another and more unequal struggle, and seek to hold the mountainous
interior. Poor, badly equipped, rent by family feuds and clan schisms,
his followers were no match for the French troops; and after the utter
break-up of his forces Paoli fled to England, taking with him three
hundred and forty of the most determined patriots.