The Boy Life of Napoleon - Eugenie Foa
BOY LIFE OF NAPOLEON
Afterwards Emperor Of The French
_Adapted And Extended For American Boys And Girls From The French Of_
Madame Eugenie Foa
Author Of "Little Princes And Princesses Young Warriors,"
"Little Robinson," Etc.
Illustrated By Vesper L George
1895
PREFACE.
The name of Madame Eugenie Foa has been a familiar one in French homes
for more than a generation. Forty years ago she was the most popular
writer of historical stories and sketches, especially designed for the
boys and girls of France. Her tone is pure, her morals are high, her
teachings are direct and effective. She has, besides, historical
accuracy and dramatic action; and her twenty books for children have
found welcome and entrance into the most exclusive of French homes. The
publishers of this American adaptation take pleasure in introducing
Madame Foa's work to American boys and girls, and in this Napoleonic
renaissance are particularly favored in being able to reproduce her
excellent story of the boy Napoleon.
The French original has been adapted and enlarged in the light of recent
research, and all possible sources have been drawn upon to make a
complete and rounded story of Napoleon's boyhood upon the basis
furnished by Madame Foa's sketch. If this glimpse of the boy Napoleon
shall lead young readers to the study of the later career of this
marvellous man, unbiased by partisanship, and swayed neither by hatred
nor hero worship, the publishers will feel that this presentation of the
opening chapters of his life will not have been in vain.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER ONE.
_In Napoleon's Grotto_
CHAPTER TWO.
_The Canon's Pears_
CHAPTER THREE.
_The Accusation_
CHAPTER FOUR.
_Bread and Water_
CHAPTER FIVE
_A Wrong Righted_
CHAPTER SIX.
_The Battle with the Shepherd Boys_
CHAPTER SEVEN.
_Good-bye to Corsica_
CHAPTER EIGHT.
_At the Preparatory School_
CHAPTER NINE.
_The Lonely School-Boy_
CHAPTER TEN.
_In Napoleon's Garden_
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
_Friends and Foes_ CHAPTER TWELVE.
_The Great Snow-tall Fight at Brienne School_
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
_Recommended for Promotion_
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
_Napoleon goes to Parts_
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
_A Trouble over Pocket Money_
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
_Lieutenant Puss-in-Boots_
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
_Dark Days_
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
_By the Wall of the Soldiers' Home_
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
_The Little Corporal_
CHAPTER TWENTY.
"_Long Live the Emperor!_"
THE BOY LIFE OF NAPOLEON.
CHAPTER ONE.
IN NAPOLEON'S GROTTO.
On a certain August day, in the year 1776, two little girls were
strolling hand in hand along the pleasant promenade that leads from the
queer little town of Ajaccio out into the open country.
The town of Ajaccio is on the western side of the beautiful island of
Corsica, in the Mediterranean Sea. Back of it rise the great mountains,
white with snowy tops; below it sparkles the Mediterranean, bluest of
blue water. There are trees everywhere; there are flowers all about; the
air is fragrant with the odor of fruit and foliage; and it was through
this scented air, and amid these beautiful flowers, that these two
little girls were wandering idly, picking here and there to add to their
big bouquets, that August day so many years ago.
Every now and then the little girls would stop their flower-picking to
cool off; for, though the August sun was hot, the western breezes came
fresh across the wide Gulf of Ajaccio, down to whose shores ran broad
and beautiful avenues of chestnut-trees, through which one could catch a
glimpse, like a beautiful picture, of the little island of Sanguinarie,
three miles away from shore.
As they came out from the shadow of the chestnut-trees, one of the
little girls suddenly caught her companion's arm, and, pointing at an
opening in a pile of rocks that overlooked the sea, she said,--
"Oh, what is this, Eliza?--an oven?"
"An oven, silly! Why, what do you mean?" Eliza answered. "Who would
build an oven here, tell me?"
"But it opens like an oven," her friend declared. "See, it has a great
mouth, as if to swallow one. Perhaps some of the black elves live there,
that Nurse Camilla told us of. Do you think so, Eliza?"
"What a baby you are, Panoria!" Eliza replied, with the superior air of
one who knows all about things. "That is no oven; nor is it a black
elf's house. It is Napoleon's grotto."
"Napoleon's!" cried Panoria. "And who gave it to him, then? Your great
uncle, the Canon Lucien?"
"No one gave it to him, child," Eliza replied. "Napoleon found it in the
rocks, and teased Uncle Joey Fesch to fix it up for him. Uncle Joey did
so, and Napoleon comes here so often now that we call it Napoleon's
grotto."
"Does he come here all alone?" asked Panoria.
"Alone? Of course," answered Eliza. "Why should he not? He is big
enough."
"No; I mean does he not let any of you come here with him?"
"That he will not!" replied Eliza. "Napoleon is such an odd boy! He will
have no one but Uncle Joey Fesch come into his grotto, and that is only
when he wishes Uncle Joey to teach him the primer. Brother Joseph tried
to come in here one day, and Napoleon beat him and bit him, until Joseph
was glad to run out, and has never since gone into the grotto."
"What if we should go in there, Eliza?" queried Panoria.
"Oh, never think of it!" cried Eliza. "Napoleon would never forgive us,
and his nails are sharp."
"And what does he do in his grotto?" asked the inquisitive Panoria.
"Oh, he talks to himself," Eliza replied.
"My! but that is foolish," cried Panoria; "and stupid too."
"Then, so are you to say so," Eliza retorted. "I tell you what is true.
My brother Napoleon comes here every day. He stays in his grotto for
hours. He talks to himself. I know what I am saying for I have come here
lots and lots of times just to listen. But I do not let him see me, or
he would drive me away."
"Is he in there now?" inquired Panoria with curiosity.
"I suppose so; he always is," replied Eliza.
"Let us hide and listen, then," suggested Panoria. "I should like to
know what he can say when he talks to himself. Boys are bad enough,
anyway; but a boy who just talks to himself must be crazy."
Eliza was hardly ready to agree to her little friend's theory, so she
said, "Wait here, Panoria, and I will go and peep into the grotto to see
if Napoleon is there."
"Yes, do so," assented Panoria; "and I will run down to that garden and
pick more flowers. See, there are many there."
"Oh, no, you must not," Eliza objected; "that is my uncle the Canon
Lucien's garden."
"Well, and is your uncle the canon's garden more sacred than any one
else's garden?" questioned Panoria flippantly.
"What a goosie you are to ask that! Of course it is," declared Eliza.
"But why?" Panoria persisted.
"Why?" echoed Eliza; "just because it is. It is the garden of my great
uncle the Canon Lucien; that is why."
"It is, because it is! That is nothing," Panoria protested. "If I could
not give a better reason"--"It is not my reason, Panoria," Eliza broke
in. "It is Mamma Letitia's; therefore it must be right."
"Well, I don't care," Panoria declared; "even if it is your mamma's, it
is--but how is it your mamma's?" she asked, changing protest to inquiry.
"Why, we hear it whenever we do anything," replied Eliza. "If they
wish to stop our play, they say, 'Stop! you will give your uncle the
headache.' If we handle anything we should not, they say, 'Hands off!
that belongs to your uncle the canon.' If we ask for a peach, they tell
us, 'No! it is from the garden of your uncle the canon.' If they give us
a hug or a kiss, when we have done well, they say, 'Oh, your uncle the
canon will be so pleased with you!' Was I not right? Is not our uncle
the canon beyond all others?"
"Yes; to worry one," declared Panoria rebelliously. "But why? Is it
because he is canon of the cathedral here at Ajaccio that they are all
so afraid of him?"
"Afraid of him!" exclaimed Eliza indignantly. "Who is afraid of him? We
are not. But, you see, Papa Charles is not rich enough to do for us what
he would like. If he could but have the great estates in this island
which are his by right, he would be rich enough to do everything for us.
But some bad people have taken the land; and even though Papa Charles is
a count, he is not rich enough to send us all to school; so our uncle,
the Canon Lucien, teaches us many lessons. He is not cross, let me tell
you, Panoria; but he is--well, a little severe."
"What, then, does he whip you?" asked Panoria.
"No, he does not; but if he says we should be whipped, then Mamma
Letitia hands us over to Nurse Mina Saveria; and she, I promise you,
does not let us off from the whipping."
All this Eliza admitted as if with vivid recollections of the vigor of
Nurse Saveria's arm.
Panoria glanced toward the grotto amid the rocks.
"Does he--Napoleon--ever get whipped?" she asked.
"Indeed he does not," Eliza grumbled; "or not as often as the rest of
us," she added. "And when he is whipped he does not even cry. You should
hear Joseph, though. Joseph is the boy to cry; and so is Lucien. I'd be
ashamed to cry as they do. Why, if you touch those boys just with your
little finger, they go running to Mamma Letitia, crying that we've
scratched the skin off."
Panoria had her idea of such "cry-babies" of boys; but Napoleon
interested her most.
"But, Eliza," she said, "what does he say--Napoleon--when he talks to
himself in his grotto over there?"
"You shall hear," Eliza replied. "Let me go and peep in, to see if he is
there. But no; hush! See, here he comes! Come; we will hide behind the
lilac-bush, and hear what Napoleon says."
"But will not your nurse, Saveria, come to look for us?" asked Panoria,
who had not forgotten Eliza's reference to the nurse's heavy hand.
"Why, no; Saveria will be busy for an hour yet, picking fruit for our
table from my uncle the canon's garden. We have time," Eliza explained.
So the two little girls hid themselves behind the lilac-bushes that
grew beside the rocks in which was the little cave which they called
Napoleon's grotto. The bush concealed them from view; two pairs of
wide-open black eyes peering curiously between the lilac-leaves were
the only signs of the mischievous young eavesdroppers.
The boy who was walking thoughtfully toward the grotto did not notice
the little girls. He was about seven years old. In fact, he was seven
that very day. For he was born in the big, bare house in Ajaccio, which
was his home, on the fifteenth of August, 1776.
He was an odd-looking boy. He was almost elf-like in appearance. His
head was big, his body small, his arms and legs were thin and spindling.
His long, dark hair fell about his face; his dress was careless and
disordered; his stockings had tumbled down over his shoes, and he looked
much like an untidy boy. But one scarcely noticed the dress of this boy.
It was his face that held the attention.
It was an Italian face; for this boy's ancestors had come, not so many
generations before, from the Tuscan town of Sarzana, on the Gulf of
Genoa--the very town from which "the brave Lord of Luna," of whom you
may read in Macaulay's splendid poem of "Horatius," came to the sack
of Rome. Save for his odd appearance, with his big head and his little
body, there was nothing to particularly distinguish the boy Napoleon
Bonaparte from other children of his own age.
Now and then, indeed, his face would show all the shifting emotions
of ambition, passion, and determination; and his eyes, though not
beautiful, had in them a piercing and commanding gleam that, with a
glance, could influence and attract his companions.
Whatever happened, these wonderful eyes--even in the boy--never lost the
power of control which they gave to their owner over those about him.
With a look through those eyes, Napoleon would appear to conceal his own
thoughts and learn those of others. They could flash in anger if need
be, or smile in approval; but, before their fixed and piercing glance,
even the boldest and most inquisitive of other eyes lowered their lids.
Of course this eye-power, as we might call it, grew as the boy grew; but
even as a little fellow in his Corsican home, this attraction asserted
itself, as many a playfellow and foeman could testify, from Joey Fesch,
his boy-uncle, to whom he was much attached, to Joseph his older
brother, with whom he was always quarrelling, and Giacommetta, the
little black-eyed girl, about whom the boys of Ajaccio teased him.
The little girls behind the lilac-bush watched the boy curiously.
"Why does he walk like that?" asked Panoria, as she noted Napoleon's
advance. He came slowly, his eyes fixed on the sea, his hands clasped
behind his back.
"Our uncle the canon," whispered Eliza; "he walks just that way, and
Napoleon copies him."
"My, he looks about fifty!" said Panoria. "What do you suppose he is
thinking about?"
"Not about us, be sure," Eliza declared.
"I believe he's dreaming," said mischievous Panoria; "let us scream out,
and see if we can frighten him."
"Silly! you can't frighten Napoleon," Eliza asserted, clapping a hand
over her companion's mouth. "But he could frighten you. I have tried
it."
Napoleon stood a moment looking seaward, and tossed back his long hair,
as if to bathe his forehead in the cooling breezes. Then entering the
grotto, he flung himself on its rocky floor, and, leaning his head upon
his hand, seemed as lost in meditation as any gray old hermit of the
hills, all unconscious of the four black eyes which, filled with
curiosity and fun, were watching him from behind the lilac-bush.
[Illustration: _At Napoleon's Grotto_]
"Here, at least," the boy said, speaking aloud, as if he wished the
broad sea to share his thoughts, "here I am master, here I am alone;
here no one can command or control me. I am seven years old to-day.
One is not a man at seven; that I know. But neither is one a child when
he has my desires. Our uncle, the Canon Lucien, tells me that Spartan
boys were taken away from the women when they were seven years old, and
trained by men. I wish I were a Spartan. There are too many here to say
what I may and may not do,--Mamma Letitia, our uncle the canon, Papa
Charles, Nurse Saveria, Nurse Camilla, to say nothing of my boy-uncle
Fesch, my brother Joseph, and sister Eliza; Uncle Joey Fesch is but four
years older than I, my brother Joseph is but a year older, and Eliza is
a year younger! Even little Pauline has her word to put in against me.
Bah! why should they? If now I were but the master at home, as I am
here"--
"Well, hermit! and what if you were the master?" cried Eliza from the
lilac-bush.
The two girls had kept silence as long as they could; and now, to keep
Panoria from speaking out, Eliza had interrupted with her question.
With that, they both ran into the grotto.
Napoleon was silent a moment, as if protesting against this invasion of
his privacy. Then he said,--"If I were the master, Eliza, I would make
you both do penance for listening at doors;" for it especially mortified
this boy to be overheard talking to himself.
"But here are no doors, Napoleon!" cried Eliza, whirling about in the
grotto.
"So much the worse, then," Napoleon returned hotly. "When there are no
doors, one should be even more careful about intruding."
"Pho! hear the little lord," teased Eliza. "One would think he was the
Emperor what's his name, or the Grand Turk."
Napoleon was about to respond still more sharply, when just then a
shrill voice rang through the grotto.
"Eliza; Panoria! Panoria; Eliza!" the call came. "Where are you,
runaways? Where are you hidden?"
"Here we are, Saveria," Eliza cried in reply, but making no move to
retire.
Napoleon would have put the girls out, but the next moment a tall and
stout young woman appeared at the entrance of the grotto. She was
dressed in black, with a black shawl draped over her high hair, and held
by a silver pin. On her arm she carried a large basket filled with
fine fruit,--pears, grapes, and figs. "So here you are, in Napoleon's
grotto!" exclaimed Saveria the nurse, dropping with her basket on the
ground. "Why did you run from me, naughty ones?"
Napoleon noted the basket's luscious contents.
"Oh, a pear! Give me a pear, Saveria!" he cried, springing toward the
nurse, and thrusting a hand into the basket.
But Nurse Saveria hastily drew away the basket.
"Why, child, child! what are you doing?" she exclaimed. "These are your
uncle the canon's."
Napoleon withdrew his hand as sharply as if a bee amid the fruit had
stung him.
"Ah, is it so?" he cried; but Panoria, not having before her eyes the
fear of the Bonapartes' bugbear, "their uncle the canon," laughed
loudly.
"What funny people you all are!" she exclaimed. "One needs but to cry,
'Your uncle the canon,' and down you all tumble like a house of cards.
What! is Saveria, too, afraid of him?"
"No more than I am," said Napoleon stoutly.
"No more than you!" laughed Panoria. "Why, Napoleon, you did not dare to
even touch the pears of your uncle the canon."
"Because I did not wish to, Panoria," replied Napoleon.
"Did not dare to," corrected Panoria.
"Did not wish to," insisted Napoleon.
"Well, wish it! I dare you to wish it!" cried Panoria, while Eliza
looked on horrified at her little friend's suggestion.
By this time Saveria had led the children from the grotto, and, walking
on ahead, was returning toward their home. She did not hear Panoria's
"dare."
"You may dare me," Napoleon replied to the challenge of Panoria; "but if
I do not wish it, you gain nothing by daring me."
"Ho! you are afraid, little boy!" cried Panoria.
"I afraid?" and Napoleon turned his piercing glance upon the little
girl, so that she quailed before it.
But Panoria was an obstinate child, and she returned to the charge.
"But if you did wish it, would you do it, Napoleon?" she asked. "Of
course," the boy replied.
"Oh, it is easy to brag," said Panoria; "but when your great man, your
uncle the canon, is around, you are no braver, I'll be bound, than
little Pauline, or even Eliza here."
By this time Eliza, too, had grown brave; and she said stoutly to her
friend, "What! I am not brave, you say? You shall see."
Then as Saveria, turning, bade them hurry on, Eliza caught Panoria's
hand, and ran toward the nurse; but as she did so, she said to Panoria,
boastingly and rashly,--
"Come into our house! If I do not eat some of those very pears out
of that very basket of our uncle the canon's, then you may call me a
coward, Panoria!"
"Would you then dare?" cried Panoria. "I'll not believe it unless I see
you."
Eliza was "in for it" now. "Then you shall see me!" she declared. "Come
to my house. Mamma Letitia is away visiting, and I shall have the best
chance. I promise you; you shall see."
"Hurry, then," said Panoria. "It is better than braving the black elves,
this that you are to do, Eliza. For truly I think your uncle the canon
must be an ogre."
"You shall see," Eliza declared again; and, running after Nurse Saveria,
they were soon in the narrow street in which, standing across the way
from a little park, was the big, bare, yellowish-gray, four-story house
in which lived the Bonaparte family, always hard pushed for money, and
having but few of the fine things which so large a house seemed to call
for. Indeed, they would have had scarcely anything to live on had it not
been for this same important relative, "our uncle, the Canon Lucien,"
who spent much of his yearly salary of fifteen hundred dollars upon this
family of his nephew, "Papa Charles," one of whom was now about to make
a raid upon his picked and particular pears.
CHAPTER TWO.
THE CANON'S PEARS,
When the little girls had left him, Napoleon remained for some moments
standing in the mouth of his grotto. His hands were clasped behind his
back, his head was bent, his eyes were fixed upon the sea.
This, as I have told you, was a favorite attitude of the little boy,
copied from his uncle the canon; it remained his favorite attitude
through life, as almost any picture of this remarkable man will convince
you.
The boy was always thoughtful. But this day he was especially so. For he
knew that it was his birthday; and while not so much notice was taken of
children's birthdays when Napoleon was a boy as is now the custom, still
a birthday _was_ a birthday.
So the day set the little fellow to thinking; and, young as he was, he
had yet much to remember.
He felt that he ought to be as rich and important as the other boys
whom he knew round about Ajaccio There were Andrew Pozzo and Charles
Abbatucci, for example. They had everything they wished, their fathers
were rich and powerful; and they made fun of him, calling him "little
frowsy head," and "down at the heel," just because his mother could not
always look after his clothes, and keep him neat and clean.
Napoleon could not see why they should be better off than was he. His
father, Charles Bonaparte, was, he had heard them say at home, a count,
but of what good was it to be a count, or a duke, if one had not palaces
and treasure to show for it?
Napoleon knew that the big and bare four-story house in which he lived
was by no means a palace; and so far from having any treasures to spend,
he knew, instead, that if it were not for the help of their uncle, the
Canon Lucien, they would often go hungry in the big house on the little
park.
But there was one consolation. If he was badly off, so, too, were many
other boys and girls in that Mediterranean island. For when Napoleon
Bonaparte was a boy, there was much trouble in Corsica. That rocky,
sea-washed, forest-crowned island of mountains and valleys, queer
customs and brave people, had been in rebellion, against its
masters--first, the republic of Genoa, and then against France.
[Illustration: House In Which Napoleon Was Born]
[Illustration: The Mother of Napoleon]
[Illustration: The Father of Napoleon]
[Illustration: Room In Which Napoleon Was Born]
Napoleon's father, Charles Bonaparte, had been a Corsican politician and
patriot, a follower of the great Corsican leader, Paoli, who had spent
many years of a glorious life in trying to lead his fellow-Corsicans to
liberty and self-government. But the attempt had been a failure; and
three months before the baby Napoleon was born, Charles Bonaparte had,
with other Corsican leaders, given up the struggle. He submitted to the
French power, took the oath of allegiance, and became a French citizen.
And thus it came to pass that little Napoleon Bonaparte, though an
Italian by blood and family, was really by birth a French citizen.
Still, all that did not help him much, if, indeed, he thought anything
about it as he stood in his grotto looking out to sea. He was thinking
of other things,--of how he would like to be great and strong and rich,
so that he could be a leader of other boys, rather than be teased by
them; for little Napoleon Bonaparte did not take kindly to being teased,
but would get very angry at his tormentors, and would bite and scratch
and fight like any little savage. He had, as a child, what is known as
an ungovernable temper, although he was able to keep it under control
until the moment came when he could both say and do to his own
satisfaction. He loved his father and mother; he loved his brothers and
sisters; he loved his uncle, the Canon Lucien; he loved, more than all
his other playmates and companions, his boy-uncle, fat, twelve-year-old
Joey Fesch, who had taught him his letters, and been his admirer and
follower from babyhood.
But though he loved them all, he loved his own way best; and he was
bound to have it, however much his father might talk, his mother chide,
or his uncle the canon correct him. So, as he stood in the grotto,
remembering that on that day he was seven years old, he determined to
let all his family see that he knew what he wished to become and do.
He would show them, he declared, that he was a little boy, a baby, no
longer; they should know that he was a boy who would be a man long
before other boys grew up, and would then show his family that they had
never really understood him.
At last he turned away and walked slowly toward home. The Bonaparte
house was, as I have told you, a big, bare, four-story, yellow-gray
house. It stood on a little narrow street, now called, after Napoleon's
mother, Letitia Place, in the town of Ajaccio. The street was not over
eight or ten feet wide; but opposite to the house was a little park that
allowed the Bonapartes to get both light and air--something that would
otherwise be hard to obtain in a street only ten feet wide.
Tired and thirsty from his walk through the sunshine of the hot August
afternoon, the boy started for the dining-room for a drink of water. As
he opened the door in his quick, impetuous way, he heard a noise as of
some one startled and fleeing. The swinging sash of the long French
window opposite him shut with a bang, and Napoleon had a glimpse of a
bit of white skirt, caught for an instant on the window-fastening.
"Ah, ha! it was not a bird, then, that fluttering," he said. "It was a
girl. One of my sisters. Now, which one, I wonder? and why did she run?
I do not care to catch her. It is no sport playing with girls."