Napoleon Bonaparte; a history written for boys

Preface

At first thought it may seem that there is Uttle excuse for a new Life of Napoleon. A Uttle consideration and investigation, however, will develop the fact that few if any attempts have been made to write the story of ' ' The Little Corporal " in a way to interest boys and at the same time to present the salient points of the life truthfully and impartially in small compass. Whether I have succeeded in doing this to the boy's satisfaction he will have to be the judge.

In the writing of the story I have had recourse to the many books dealing with the subject, both friendly and unfriendly to the "Man of Destiny," and have tried to take a conservative, middle course in my treatment of it. I am convinced, first, last and all the time, that out of the turmoil and strife, the error and sin, the inordinate ambition and the folly of the days of the great Revolution, God has wrought much for the betterment of France and of the world at large.

PREFACE

I owe much to the works of Scott, Lockhart, Abbott, The Berkely Men and others for data, and in the use of it trust that i have not overstepped the bounds of good usage and good conscience.

William C. S Prague.

October 1, 1903.

Chapter I

Corsica and the Corsicans — Napoleon's parentage and birth — His childhood — At school at Autun — At school at Brienne — At school at Paris 9

CHAPTER n The French Revolution 28

CHAPTER HI Napoleon's First Seven Years as a Soldier 35

CHAPTER IV Napoleon's First Great Military Success — He Marries 46

CHAPTER V Sardinia Humbled and Austria in Retreat 54

CHAPTER VI

The Conqueror of Italy 67

CHAPTER VII

Peace with Austria — The Court of Montebello 81

CHAPTER VIII

The Egyptian Campaign — Battle of the Pyramids 91

CHAPTER IX The Battle of the Nile — The Syrian Campaign 99

CHAPTER X

Napoleon in Paris — The Revolution of 1799 — The Consulate 112

CHAPTER XI

Napoleon Chief Consul — The Crossing of the Alps — Marengo 118

CHAPTER XII

Peace — Reforms — Consul for Life — War with England —

Conspiracies 131

CHAPTER XIII

Napoleon Emperor — Death of Nelson — Austerlitz — Jena

— Eylau — Treaty of Tilsit 142

CHAPTER XIV Conquest of Spain and Portugal — War with Austria 160

CHAPTER XV

Josephine divorced — Napoleon marries Maria Louisa of Austria — War with Russia — The Retreat from Moscow 175

CHAPTER XVI The Prussian Campaign 192

CHAPTER XVII

France Invaded — Napoleon Overthrown and Deposed 202

CHAPTER XVIII

Elba — The One Hundred Days — Waterloo — St. Helena —

The End 216

List of Illustrations

Napoleon Crossing the Alps Frontispiece

The Battle of Rivoli Face Page 71 "

Murat at Jena 154

The Battle of Friedland 158

The Retreat from Russia 188 '

Napoleon's Retreat, Battle of "Waterloo 228 -^

CHAPTER I.

CORSICA AND THE CORSICANS NAPOLEON^S

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH HIS CHILDHOOD

AT SCHOOL AT AUTUN — AT SCHOOL AT

BRIENNE — AT SCHOOL AT PARIS

In the sunny Mediterranean, one hundred and six miles southeast of Nice on the coast of France, ninety-eight miles south of Genoa, where Christopher Columbus was born, and fifty-four miles west of Tuscany, lies a rocky island known as Corsica, the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte. The island is not much larger than the State of Connecticut, and ninetenths of it is uncultivated. Wild and forbidding mountains traverse it from end to end, some of whose peaks carry the eternal snows. Its lowlands are carpeted with luxuriant and varied vegetation, and its uplands are clothed with magnificent forests.

Few countries of the size of Corsica have produced more illustrious characters, or witnessed more thrilling achievements than has she. War was ever the principal occupation of her inhabitants. Scarcely a generation of Corsicans but has heard the tocsin ring. Their fight has not been the fight of aggressors but the fight of men and women battling for their homes and their lives, falling prey to each succeeding world power — a very shuttlecock on the battledore of fate. This has had much to do with creating Corsican character — revengeful, ferocious, liberty-loving, hospitable, simple of manners.

In early days the Phocasans (an Asiatic people) settled here, but were compelled later to submit to the Etruscans, and then to the Carthagenians. The all-conquering Romans wrested it from the latter and used it as a place of banishment, and here the old Roman philosopher Seneca was compelled to spend eight years of his life. Then came the Vandals, Byzantines, Ostragoths, Franks, Saracens, Pisans, Genoese, and finally the French.

Modern history first finds the Corsicans fighting for independence against the Genoese. [10]

In 1735 the former were triumphant, proclaimed their independence, and declared that the people were the only source of the laws, Corsica now became a little democracy, broken up into village communities that were selfruhng, but all united in a confederation for mutual protection and defence. Considering the fact that the nations of Europe had at this time almost without exception despotic governments and were ruled by hereditary kings, we wonder at seeing on this little island not only the seeds but the growing plant of freedom and equality.

Corsican history is full of the bravery of this little people surrounded on all sides by enemies, and fighting, generation after generation, for their homes and their rights. But our story has not so much to do with Corsica as it has to do with Corsica's greatest son, Napoleon Bonaparte.

Genoa ceded Corsica to France August 6, 1764, at a time when she had nothing to cede, and France at once set out to take possession of her new territory. The Corsicans resisted, but were unable to defend themselves against the tremendous odds, and on June 12, 1769, the island became a part of France. Just two months and three days later, August 15th, [11]

Napoleon Bonaparte was born at Ajaccio, a port town of Corsica, and hence escaped but a few days being born an alien. Dumas, the great French writer, says : " The new-born child breathed the air that was hot with civil hates, and the bell which sounded his baptism still quivered with the tocsin."

By blood, the young Napoleon was Italian. The name Bonaparte appears in the annals of the early Italian states, and often with distinction. His immediate ancestors were said to have come from Tuscany. His father, Charles Bonaparte, married, at the age of eighteen, Letitia Bamolino, a Corsican girl of fifteen, distinguished for her beauty, high spirit, intelligence, judgment, common sense, inflexible courage, frugality, industry, loftiness and energy of character. Charles Bonaparte was a handsome, high-spirited man, a lawyer by profession, his degree in law having been taken in Italy. The family were not rich, and neither were they poor. They were looked upon as among the people of gentle blood and, as we shall see later, when Napoleon made application for admission to a military school, he was able to trace his nobility back through three generations, as required of an applicant.

Napoleon was one of thirteen children born [12]

to Charles and Letitia Bonaparte. Those who grew to manhood and womanhood were Joseph, Napoleon, Lucien, Louis, Jerome, Ehza, Caroline, and Pauhne.

After the war between France and Corsica ended. General Marboeuf, who became the French Governor of Corsica, made the home of Charles Bonaparte his favorite resort, and afterwards this French count was of assistance to Napoleon when the latter came to seek a militaiy education. Through the influence of General Marboeuf, Napoleon's father was made assessor of the high court of Ajaccio and a member of the council of Corsican nobles; later he became a representative of these nobles at the court of King Louis of France.

We, of course, want to know something about Napoleon's childhood. The child being father to the man, perhaps we can find some explanation of his wonderful career in the conditions of his early life. We have seen that he was one of a number of children, and that the home was not a home of ease and idleness. The little Napoleon had no doubt his share of the work to do. How well he did it we are left only to surmise from the nature of the man into which he developed. He says of himself that he was not a good-natured boy and that he [13]

was inclined to be morose and quarrelsome; that he was always getting into trouble with his brothers. We can almost venture to guess that he was incHned to be imperious and want his own way, which does not always make a boy popular nor conduce to peace. He must have been something of a warrior from the beginning. But how could he well have been otherwise? The blood of warriors was in his veins. His father, and his father's father, had followed the Corsican patriots into the field and fought for home and country. It is said that even his mother, a very short time before his birth, followed the troops in the campaign against the French invader. In his boyhood he hated France, the country of which later he was to be the idol. The atmosphere about him was filled with war. He heard nothing but the stories of fights, of plots and counterplots, of wrongs and of rebellion. No wonder he longed for a military education, the highest education then known, fit only for the sons of nobles. Historians all tell us that the toy which he most prized was a little brass cannon weighing thirty pounds. This toy he planted on mimic batteries thrown up among the rocks, and there he pretended he was a Corsican army defending his country from the hated Frenchmen. There [ 14 ]

are indications that he early dreamed that some day he would rise like Paoli, the Corsican hero of whom his father must have told him, drive the Frenchmen from his native shores and bring back the days of Corsican independence.

There was one member of the family whom we must not forget. He is known in Napoleon's Memoirs as " Uncle Fesch." Napoleon's grandmother married a second htisband, an army officer by the name of Fesch, and from this union came a son Joseph, who was the Uncle Fesch of history. From Uncle Fesch Napoleon learned his alphabet.

There are two spots in Corsica near together that tourists visit; one is the house in which Napoleon was born, a yellowish-gray plastered house of three stories, which still remains. In it is a small room, with two windows, a cupboard in the wall, and a marble chimney-place, in which Napoleon was born; the other is a place about a mile from Ajaccio, which was the summer home of the Bonapartes. Here is a sort of a summer-house under a rock which stands out in full view of the sea. Napoleon, as a boy, loved to play here, and later as a young man he brought his books to this spot, and lay looking out on the sea and [15]

dreaming the wonderful dreams so soon to become realities.

In his sixth year Napoleon was sent' to a " dame's school; " and we now begin to see him developing the traits of character that afterwards distinguished him. At this school he did what many another little boy has done — fell in love with a little girl; her name was Giacominetta. Frequently they were seen walking hand in hand. Napoleon was a handsome boy, but he was careless abotit his dress, and this latter fact is indicated by a httle couplet that mischievous boys in the school composed and called out to him whenever they saw the youthful lovers together:

" Napoleon with his stockings half off Makes love to Giacominetta."

Now the time has come, so important in a boy's life, when the young Napoleon must leave home to get an education. It was the ambition of every French boy at that time to attend a military school, but it was not possible for every French boy to do so, as these schools were largely reserved for the rich and the nobility. Napoleon did not belong to a rich family, but he was able to trace his nobility through several [16]

generations. He wanted to enter the military school at Brienne, a town in France, and now it was fortunate that the family had the friendly aid of General Marboeuf, for it was through him that the application of young Napoleon was made and accepted. This was in the year 1776, when he was a little under seven years of age and the very year in which the American colonies declared their independence of Great Britain. The boy had another difficulty to overcome, for he could not speak French; at least, he did it only imperfectly, for, as we have learned, his family and their neighbors were Italians. So before going to Brienne, he was sent to school to the Bishop of Autun, and he himself leaves evidence in his writings that his parting with his mother gave him great grief, and that through all his life he remembered how sad he felt on that occasion.

We are told that at the school at Autun he was a thoughtful and gloomy boy; we need not think this strange when we remember how young he was and that he was away from home for the first time in his life, in a strange land among boys whose language he did not understand. The boys nicknamed him, and made fun of his origin. The httle island of [H]

Corsica was despised by them, for it had only been a part of the French domain a few years and its inhabitants were even then scarcely conquered. Probably young Napoleon incurred the enmity of his schoolmates by his loyalty to his native land and to his people. If so, all honor to him!

Paoli, the great Corsican leader under whom his father had fought, was a hero in the boy's eyes. He could hear nothing said of Paoli or his countrymen without becoming angry and taking up their cause. Most of the boys with whom he associated were the sons of nobles, and many of them were slipplied with better clothing, better furnishings, and more money than he had. They made fun of his poverty ; they taunted him with not having as good blood in his veins as they had; and we have a record of his replying to one of them, " I would rather be the son of a peasant than descended from any of the petty tyrants of Italy." Some one said in his presence, " The Corsicans are a lot of cowards," and his reply was, " Had you French been but four to one against us you would never have conquered us, but you were ten to one." His teacher then said, " But you had a good general, PaoH." [18]

" Yes," replied the boy, " and I would like to resemble him."

JSTapoleon says of himself that at this time he was headstrong, that nothing overawed him or disconcerted him, that he was quarrelsome, mischievous, and afraid of no one. But this temperament was not the result of bad training, for his mother had been very particular about his conduct — that mother of whom he once, when he had grown to manhood, exclaimed, "Ah, what a woman! Where look for her equal? "

On May 12, 1779, Napoleon left Autun, and seven days later, at about ten years of age, entered the military school of Brienne. He says of himself: " On entering Brienne I was delighted. My head began to ferment. I wanted to learn, to know, to distinguish myself. I devoured the books that came in my way." The teachers in this school were incompetent monks. His schoolmates were proud, idle, extravagant young aristocrats, most of them the sons of nobles. Here the experience he had at Autun was repeated. The boys made fun of his father's being a lawyer and reviled his mother.

Everything conspired against him. In personal appearance he was pitifully thin, short, [19]

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE awkward. He was poor, and, what was more, he was bashful. He had come from a country where the people had learned to rtile themselves and where there was equality of right, into an atmosphere of servile submission to inherited rank. Despised and neglected, he became moody and discontented and withdrew from society. Alone with his books, he studied and planned how some day, despite the unequal chances, he would make these proud fellows bow the knee. He studied hard, particularly in mathematics, and the records of the school at Brienne show that he stood first in that study. This, too, no doubt, created jealousies that made matters hard for him. He stood fairly well in history and geography, but Latin and German and ornamental branches he disliked.

Every student in the school received a bit of ground for his own use, and by some means Napoleon got the use of not only his own but of two others, the whole of which he hedged in, and here in seclusion he studied and dreamed. The more he withdrew himself from the society of the boys the less did they leave him alone. They followed him about calling him by his nicknames. Often he would remain silent, but at times with bursts of anger he [20]

would break out and defy them single-handed. Instead of compelling him by their taunts and abuses to ape their manners and despise his country and his countrymen, it drove him into that very state of mind which prompted him later to do the things that have made him famous. It gave him a hungering for distinction, not the kind of distinction that birth gives, but the kind that is won by work. Having felt the abuse of the slanderer he came to have a deep dread of disgrace and love of fame that would enable him to overcome inequalities of station. He learned to hate the nobility and to espouse the cause of the poor and the downtrodden. At times he broke out in torrents of invective against that minister of France who had brought war upon Corsica. To some one who had spoken slightingly of Paoli he cried out, " Paoli was a great man; he loved his country. I will never forgive my father for his share in uniting Corsica to France. He should have followed Paoli," meaning that when Paoli refused to surrender to the French at the end of the war and left the island his father should have gone with him.

Nothwithstanding the treatment his fellow students visited upon him he compelled their respect at times, and so it has been and always [21]

will be with the boy who goes straight ahead and does his duty. In the school it was the custom to give each boy in turn charge for a certain time of the conduct of other boys. On such occasions when young Napoleon was chosen to take charge he never tattled. Then, too, he was brave, and when an opportunity arose requiring a strong, brave heart Napoleon became a hero even among those who affected to despise him.

One winter Napoleon suggested that the students engage in mimic war. A snow fort was built, and Napoleon, first at the head of the defenders and then at the head of the attacking party, displayed something of the wonderful generalship that afterwards distinguished him. He studied his plan of attack or his plan of defence as a general would map out a real campaign. His imperious nature showed itself in the mimic attack on the snow fort when with a chunk of ice he knocked a boy down who disobeyed his orders. Afterwards, at Paris, when Napoleon was attending a higher military school, his biographers tell us that he was often seen at night in the fort drawing plans of attack and defence.

At another time, while at Brienne, the boys of the school had been refused permission to [ 22 1 attend a fair which was being held in the neighborhood. Marshahng a number of the students together, he led them in an attempt to undermine the wall around their yard in order to effect their escape.

These incidents may, perhaps, be laid to boyish love of adventure, but they all indicated the uncurbed, imperious nature of the boy. Such a boy could not surrender his prejudices. He would not truckle or bow down to unjust authority. He was the kind of a boy to clench his fists and grind his teeth and vow, in the solitude of his room, undying hatred of shams and pretenses. He would stamp his feet with impatience that the time was coming so slowly when he could show these boastful aristocrats that even without title and without wealth, a poor and despised Corsican, he would some day cause them to tremble. " I hope," he said, " some day to give Corsica her freedom," and he made every hour of his student life bend to the attainment of this ambition.

His nature as a boy was a strange mixture of good and evil. While he was unsocial, quarrelsome, imperious, headstrong, and at times even savage toward his fellows, he was submissive, upright, thoughtful, exemplary, industrious, obedient in his deportment toward [23]

his teachers. He read ahnost constantly, and the books that he read were such books as " Plutarch's Lives " and the poetry of Ossian, books filled with stories of heroes, men of giant courage who did great things. He refused to borrow money, notwithstanding that he was poor and suffered the taunts of his fellow students by reason of his poor clothes. We even hear of his writing home to his father, in his despair entreating him to take him away from the school or give him enough to support himself. His refusal to borrow was a noble one. " I have no right," he said, " to add to the burdens of my mother by borrowing money that I may not be able to repay."

He declaimed against the luxury of the young men about him who idled away their time and dressed and lived extravagantly. He denounced the French system of military education, even writing a letter to his instructors in which he drew a contrast between the sort of education the boys of France were getting and that which the Spartan youth enjoyed. Being reproved for his ingratitude as a pensioner of the king, for the schools were supported by the king's bounty, he broke out in furious indignation. " Silence! " said the gentleman at [24]

whose table he was sitting. " It ill becomes you who are educated by the king's bounty, to speak as you do." The boy was nearly stifled with rage, and turning red and pale by turns, he cried out, " I am not educated at the king's expense but at the expense of the nation," and by " nation " he meant the people who paid the taxes to support the royal bounties. In his letter to the head of the school decrying against the luxury of the young nobles, he said no man could be fitted for military life without habits of independence. He advised that the young men be obliged to clean their own rooms, groom their own horses, and inure themselves to hardship. " If I were King of France," he cried, " I would change this state of things very quick."

It was the custom every year to select three of the best scholars from each of the twelve provincial military schools to be sent to Paris to the higher school. It fell to the good fortune of Napoleon five years after his entering the school at Brienne to be thus selected for promotion, and on the 30th of October, 1784, he entered Paris as a student — that Paris that afterwards was to cry " Vive I'Empereur! " in a frenzy of joy at sight of him.

In an old manuscript which belonged to the [25]

then minister of war, in an article under the head, " School of Brienne," appears the following: "Bonaparte, five feet, six and one-half inches. Good constitution. Health excellent. Character mild, honest, grateful. Conduct exemplary. He has always distinguished himself by his application to mathematics. Understands history and geography tolerably well. Is indifferently skilled in merely ornamental studies. Would make an excellent sailor. Deserves to be passed on to the school at Paris."

On Napoleon's certificate which was furnished him on his graduation from Brienne, was written these words: "Character masterful, imperious, and headstrong." His old history teacher, in a list of his scholars, wrote: " Napoleon Bonaparte — a Corsican by birth and character — he will do something great, if circumstances favor him." Hear this prophecy and then turn to the words of Lockhart, the historian, " Napoleon was the greatest actor the world has known since the time of Caesar. He moved over the earth as a meteor traverses the sky, astonishing and startling all by the suddenness and brilliancy of his career. The earth will feel his power till its last cycle shall have been [26]

run." Thus did his old master see the man in the boy.

Of Napoleon's course in the school at Paris we know but little. We hear once of his having written disrespectfully of the king and of his being ordered to burn the letter. One says of him at Paris, " He showed a great memory and great judgment, and here his mind appeared to those about him to have been molded in an antique cast."

In August, 1785, when at the age of sixteen, he was examined by the celebrated mathematician. La Place, he obtained the brevet of a second lieutenant of artillery in the regiment of La Fere. He at once joined the regiment which at that time was stationed at Valence. He and a comrade started from Paris to join the regiment, and on the way their money gave out, compelling them to make the remainder of their journey on foot. Joining his regiment, he was almost immediately promoted to the first lieutenancy. He was now in the army of France, enrolled under the banner of King Louis XVI., and in the path that was so soon to lead to almost unparalleled glory.

Chapter II. The French Revolution

Leaving Bonaparte, the sixteen-year-old lieutenant of artillery, with his regiment at Valence, let us take a glance at the condition of France at that time — that France which was about to become the theatre of the most terrible drama the world has ever seen. It can only be a glance because history moved wonderfidly fast near the close of the eighteenth century, and the space at our command is limited. Still something must be said of the great French Revolution and the causes that led up to it, or we shall fail to understand much that we shall hereafter read.

At just about the time when the American colonies were engaged in a war with the mother country to rid themselves of the burdens of unjust taxation and to set up for themselves a free and independent government of which liberty and equality should be the watchwords, . [28]

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

the French people were manifesting an impatience with their king and giving signs of the approach of that time when they should throw oiF the rule of a sovereign whose right to rule lay solely in the fact that he was the descendant of a king, and declare for the principles of democracy. Indeed, within seventeen years from the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence the head of Louis XVI. dropped from the block, to be followed soon after by that of his queen, Marie Antoinette, and the rule of kings and queens in France, at least for a time, was at an end.

The French Revolution did not come in a moment. There was warning enough if men had stopped to think. When the storm burst the world stood in amazement at its fury, but the clouds had been gathering for many years. A great change had been coming over the disposition of the people of France toward royalty; and when we say " people " we mean the masses of the population aside from the nobles and the high church officials. Perhaps no people in Europe had been for centuries more loyal to their rulers than were the French. Their loyalty was even of an unreasoning kind. They were ready to suffer any burdens if by doing so they coUld add to the glory of their [ 29 ]

king. They paid heavy taxes. They impoverished themselves. They gave their children to fight in war. They seemed to find compensation enough for it all in seeing magnificent palaces arise on every side and in witnessing the pomp and glory of royal display.

But a change had finally come. First, whispered criticism, then murmurs of complaint, then remonstrance and protest, and fijially open revolt and insurrection. Taxes grew heavier and heavier, and still there was not enough money in the royal treasury to meet the extravagant expenditures made in keeping up the royal show. And what seems strange to us in this enlightened day, the common people, the burghers in the small towns, the small traders, and the farmers paid all the taxes, while the nobles and the clergy, for whom the bulk of the taxes were levied, paid none. Knowing this fact alone, we are led to wonder that the ancient system lasted as long as it did.