a great man. He loved his country; and never will I forgive my father, who had been his adjutant, for having concurred in the union of Corsica with France. He should have followed Paoli's fortune, and have fallen with him." At another time, when chafed by the taunts of some of the pupils upon his foreign complexion and accent, he said to Bourienne, with rageful emphasis, "Ah! I will do thy Frenchmen all the harm it may be ever in my power to inflict." These quotations, brief as they are, abundantly suffice to prove that Napoleon's love of France, of which one hears so much, descended upon him with his general's epaulettes.

At the age of nine years eight months and five days, Napoleon Bonaparte entered the Royal Military School at Brienne, through the interest of Count Marbœuf, whose good offices, constantly exerted in behalf of the family, were attributed by the scandal manufacturers of the day to an improper intimacy between the Count and Madame Bonaparte an imputation as false and infamous as the contemporary slanders by like evil tongues concerning the hapless Marie Antoinette.* Napoleon remained five years five months and twenty-seven days at Brienne; and his personal appearance and demeanour whilst there have been described as follows, by men who wrote from personal knowledge: "Napoleon Bonaparte was remarked for the colour of his complexion, his foreign accent, his piercing interrogative looks, and by the tone of his conversation with his masters and comrades, in which there was always a certain degree of harshness. He was not of a loving disposition. The young Napoleon was reserved, had few friends, and no intimates; but when he chose exerted considerable influence over his comrades." M. de Keralso, inspector of the 12th military school, made, in October, 1784, the following official report of his person, conduct, acquirements, and capabilities, to the central military school at Paris, whither Napoleon was shortly afterwards transferred. With the exception of the passages we have taken the liberty to print in italics, the report was no doubt, as far as it went, a faithful one :-"“M. de Bonaparte, born August 15th, 1769, height 4 ft. 10 in. 10 lines, finished his fourth course, of good constitution, excellent health, of submissive character, and regular conduct; has been always distinguished for application to the mathematics. He is tolerably well acquainted with history and geography; he is deficient in the ornamental branches, and in Latin. He will make an excellent sailor."

Napoleon had obtained the mathematical prize, in which science he was instructed by Perrault-Pichegru was a monitor in the same class -but M. de Keralso forgot to mention, or was perhaps unaware that, besides being deficient in the ornamental branches and Latin, Bonaparte had never been able to master the spelling and grammar of the French language. It may be that Napoleon's failure in the loftier and more

* It is one of the worst traits of Napoleon's character that this admirable mother was treated by him, after he attained supreme power, with what, under the circumstances, must be characterised as disdainful neglect. Few persons had less influence with the Emperor of the French than Madame Mère.

humanizing of educational studies should be attributed to the fact that they were taught by the monks of the order of St. Vincent de Paul, under whose general superintendence the Brienne school was placed, and who were not celebrated for their attainments in polite literature. Be this as it may, it is not the less certain that Napoleon's appreciation of authorial ability, of vigour and beauty of style, was throughout his life of the dullest kind, as witness his admiration of Macpherson's "Ossian," which he deemed to be sublime poetry, and the turgid tawdriness of his own orders of the day, addresses to his soldiers, and his despatches, so wofully in contrast with the severe nervous simplicity of those of the Duke of Wellington.

The military aptitude and predisposition of Napoleon continued strongly to manifest themselves. The frequently-quoted incident of the snow batteries occurred during the winter of 1783-4, when an unusual fall of snow prevented Napoleon from taking his usual solitary meditative walks. A game of mimic war might, he thought, prove an agreeable relief to the tedium and noisy monotony of the hall in which the pupils could alone take exercise; and at his suggestion the snow bastions were erected, assailed, defended selon les règles during ten dayshe commanding the assaulting party-by which time, stones and gravel having gradually superseded the use of snow missiles, the play, fast becoming much too earnest, was peremptorily put an end to. At another time, when the rumour had spread that the monks did not

intend permitting the pupils to visit the annual fair held in the neighbourhood of Brienne, Napoleon advised, as a precautionary measure, that the garden wall should be secretly undermined. This was done in such a manner that, when the day arrived, and the monks and masters, having securely locked in the impatient pupils, were gravely sermonizing upon the evil consequences of permitting youth to attend fairs, a mass of wall fell suddenly in, disclosing a huge gap, through which the exultant boys disappeared beyond recall, before their astounded superiors thoroughly comprehended what had happened. Once, too, it chanced that young Bonaparte, for some infraction of school discipline, was excluded from the students' table, and compelled to wear a penitential dress. The compressed but fiery rage of the proud boy was so violent as to bring on a severe nervous attack, notwithstanding that his mathematical tutor, Perrault, perceiving the terrible effect of the punishment upon his remarkable pupil, begged him off before the allotted period of penance was nearly expired.

Napoleon left Brienne for the central Paris school in October, 1784, not, it should seem, to the very poignant regret of the authorities he had quitted, nor to the extreme delight of their Paris confrères when they became better acquainted with their new acquisition. A note by the sous-principal describes him as "a domineering, imperious, headstrong boy." He was perpetually remonstrating against the laxity of discipline and the expensive habits tolerated at the school. An extract from a memorial to M. Berton will show the spirit of those remonstrances, and the tone in which they were urged:-"Since the King's pupils (les élèves du Roi) are all of them poor gentlemen, destined for the military profession, should they be not really, essentially educated to that end? Accustomed to a sober life, to be rigidly scrupulous in conduct and appearance, they would become robust, would be able to support the inclemency of seasons, the fatigues of war, and inspire respect and a blind devotion in the soldiers placed under their command."

So rude a censor, and a mere boy, too, was as speedily as possible got rid of; his examination was hastened, pronounced extremely satisfactory, and he was presented, Sept. 1785, with his commission of second lieutenant in the regiment of La Fère, or First of the Artillery. His father died in the previous February, and Napoleon would have had no difficulty in obtaining leave to visit him had he been so minded; nor is it likely that the expense of a journey from Paris to Montpelier and back again could have been an insurmountable obstacle, as his greatuncle, Lucien Bonaparte, the archdeacon of the cathedral of Ajaccio, made him an allowance at this time, continued till he obtained his captain's commission, of twelve hundred francs (forty-eight pounds) per annum. The regiment of La Fère was quartered at Valence, where it was promptly joined by the juvenile lieutenant, whose military duties, however, did not entirely engross his time and meditations; for, in 1786, he competed for a prize offered by the Academy of Lyons for the best essay on the Abbé Raynal's question, "What are the principles and institutions by application of which mankind can be raised to the

highest pitch of happiness?" Napoleon gained the prize, against what competitors does not appear; but in after years when Talleyrand, having obtained the manuscript from the archives of the academy, presented it to the Emperor, his Imperial Majesty, after glancing at a line or two only, threw it, with an expressive shrug of disdain, on the fire. A very appropriate fate, there can be little doubt, though it did obtain the academical prize; Raynal's question being in itself an utter absurdity, and Napoleon, even in his riper years, one of the most illogical reasoners upon matters of theory that ever meddled with the science of dialectics. In proof of this it is sufficient to refer to the marvellously absurd propositions which, according to his own statements at St. Helena, he vainly endeavoured to persuade the jurisconsults and lawyers whom he had commissioned to draw up the codes which bear his name, to embody in those famous instruments. In 1789-90, during a part of which latter year he was on leave in Corsica, he made some progress with what was intended to be a political, civil, and military history of that island. It was never published, nor, indeed, finished; though negotiations were entered into with Mr. Joly, a bookseller of Dol, with a view to its printing and publication. It is probable that his still flaming Corsican patriotism, of which this projected history is another proof, prevented him from joining actively, as he otherwise might have done, in the revolutionary movement which was shaking old France to its foundations; albeit, we have it in his own words that he was from the first with the "patriots," and the honest reason of his being so :-"I might have adhered to the king had I been a general; being a subaltern, I joined the patriots!"

and

He felt, however, very slight personal respect towards the general mob of patriots; for, happening to be dining with Bourienne, at a restaurateur's in the Rue St. Honoré, Paris, when about five or six thousand of them rushed past, shouting and cursing, towards the Tuilleries, he sprang up and made after them, exclaiming to his companion, "Suivons cette canaille-là !” He thus witnessed the brutal humiliation of Louis XVI., in being compelled to put on the bonnet rouge drink the nation's health, at the bidding of the ruffians in whose power he had weakly placed himself. Bonaparte's surprise and indignation were unbounded. "Che Coglione !" he exclaimed to Bourienne, "why did they admit that rabble? They should have swept away five or six hundred of them with cannon, and the rest would be running still." He was, moreover, thoroughly convinced from that moment that the unfortunate monarch was a doomed man.

To return, however, to the young Napoleon's more personal history. In 1791, his ire was greatly excited against one Butafuco, a majorgeneral, and representative of the Corsican nobility in the French National Assembly, against whom he forthwith launched a furious pamphlet, in which it was made to appear that the major-general had corruptly betrayed the interests confided to his care. One hundred copies of this pamphlet were sent to Corsica, where it had the honour of being adopted and republished by the Patriotic Society of Ajaccio. Although written in Napoleon's usual spasmodic, out-of-breath style,

yet, as offering the very best specimen of his literary efforts extant, a rather lengthened quotation may be acceptable. The concluding vocative paragraph contains, by the way, a curious assemblage of names to be addressed by Napoleon Bonaparte :-"Sir,--From Bonafacio to Cape Cossa, from Ajaccio to Bastia, there is one chorus of imprecation against you. Your friends keep out of sight, your relations disown you, and even the man of reflection, who does not allow himself to be swayed by popular opinion, is for once led away by the general effervescence. But what have you done? What are the crimes to justify such universal indignation, such complete desertion? This, sir, is what I wish to inquire into in the course of a little discussion with you." It appears, however, that there was no need of inquiry; the majorgeneral's iniquity having been already published in very striking typeso at least says the ferocious pamphleteer :-"The history of your life, since the time at least when you appeared upon the stage of public affairs, is well known. Its principal features are drawn in letters of blood!" After lacerating the culprit till there is really no spot on which to lay an additional lash that is not already streaming with gore, the unappeased young Corsican contrives to vary the infliction by assailing the wretched major-general through his wife, after this fashion:-"And you, respectable, unhappy woman, whose youth, beauty, and innocence were vilely prostituted, does your pure and chaste heart beat under a hand so criminal? In those moments in which nature gives an alarm to love; in those moments you press to your heart, you become identified with the cold and selfish man who has never deviated from his character; and who, in the course of nearly sixty years, has never known anything but the care of his own interests, an instinctive love of destruction, the most infamous avarice, the base pleasures of sense. Byand-by the glare of honours-the trappings of riches will disappear; you will be loaded with general contempt. Will you seek, in the bosom of him who is the author of your woes, a consolation indispensable to your gentle and affectionate mind? Will you endeavour to find in his eyes tears to mingle with yours? Alas! if you surprise him in tears they will be those of remorse! If his bosom heave, it will be with the convulsions of the wretch who dies abhorring nature, himself, and the hand that guides him! O Lameth! O Robespierre! O Pétion! O Volney! O Mirabeau ! O Barrère ! O Lafayette! this is the man who dares to seat himself by your side! Dripping with the blood of his brethren, stained by every sort of vice, he presents himself with confidence in the dress of a general, the reward of his crimes!"

Such effusions as these diminish one's surprise at the aversion Napoleon I. manifested towards literature and literary people; he could hardly, one would think, have endured to look them in the face. Happily for the young officer of artillery, his advancement in life did not depend upon his pen, nor upon the higher attributes of intellect, but simply upon an unusual mastery of the mathesis which teaches how overwhelming numbers may be with the greatest rapidity and certainty directed and concentrated upon a given point; supreme knowledge, no doubt, as the world goes, or, at least, has hitherto gone; and, in 1792,