The soul of Napoleon

Front matter

ri SOUL OF NAFOIIO

Class_II)£L§A3 Book , fi^

THE SOUL OF NAPOLEON

Chapter I Paoh

The Rule of Heredity — Man the Supersimian — Role of the Spinal Column — A Cynical Truism — Napoleon's Splendid Equipment — Lord Acton's View — Social Origins of the Bonapartes — Their Middle-class Status — The Nursery of Fame — Corsica and its Natives — Napoleon' s^^ Regard for his Island Home — Bonaparte's Ligurian Ancestry — King Theodore of Corsica — His Relationship to the Bonapartes — Paoli and Bonaparte pire — The Bonapartes as Men of Law — A Lawyer's Importance in Ajaccio — Ancestral Pretensions of Bonaparte phe — Phenomenal Types and New Blood — Factions of the Mala and Buona Parte — Ajaccio and Napoleon's Ancestors — The Aristocrats of the Pale — The Provincialism of the Bonapartes — Their Love of Learning — Their Esprit de Foyer — The Spirit of the Clan — Napoleon's Mania of Superiority — His Jealousy of Famous Men — His Opinion about Ccesar, Hannibal, Alexander — Relations with his Master Generals — Le Harnai's Militaire — Napoleon's Master Passion

Chapter II

Napoleon's Academic Training — The Curriculum at Brienne — The Classical and Language Course — On Literary Style — The Mathematical Studies — Religious Instruction — At the Ecole Militaire — The Subaltern-Student of Auxonne — Importance of History — Formation of Literary Tastes — What Rousseau taught Napoleon — Machiavelli a Favourite — Was Bonaparte a Mason? — Some Literary Attempts — His " Heart's Library " — Some English Books

Chapter III

Frenchmen and Corneille — Value of Napoleon's Criticism — His Literary Likes and Dislikes— His Opinion of Corneille and Moli^re — A Discussion of Tragedy — Napoleon and Raynouard — Concerning Voltaire — A Reading by Talma — Napoleon and the Public Taste— Love and Tragedy— A Literary Ghost — The Emperor's Criticism of the Mneid, Book 1 1. —His Opinion of the Iliad— Dislike of Shakespeare— A Hypercritical View

Chapter IV Page

Talma and Bonaparte — The Actor coaches the First Consul — The Emperor coaches the Actor — Friendly Relations of the Twain — Napoleon on Critics and his Love for Cinna — Concerning Mademoiselle Mars and her Sister — An Unexpected Scene — Mademoiselle Bourgoin and Chaptal — An Imperial Rebuke

Chapter V

Standards of Beauty — Lessing's View — George an Amazonian Type — Her Attraction for Bonaparte — Their First Meeting at Saint-Cloud — Affected Nervousness of the Actress — Napoleon as a Lover — Espionage of Talleyrand — Bonaparte criticises the Actress — His Generosity to George — A Visit to the Tuileries — Josephine's Fit of Jealousy — Napoleon's Coronation — George visits an Emperor — Napoleon and his Bonnes Fortunes — Where George disappointed her Lover — Her Veneration for Napoleon — A Costly Rendezvous

Chapter VI

The Cult of Napoleon — Goethe on the Corsican — The Congress of Erfurt — Honouring the Sage — Lannes, Maret and Goethe — Presentation to the Emperor — Ecce Homo ! — The Emperor and Werther — Politics and Fate — Napoleon's Manoeuvre — MUller on the Interview — Talleyrand's Version of the Meeting — Preparations for Erfurt — An Imperial Opinion upon Athalie — Goethe and Dedication — Talleyrand on Napoleon's Learning — Johann von MUller — The Emperor on Christianity — Tragedy, the School of Kings — Wieland is presented — Les genres tranches — History and Romance — Wieland at the Palace — Tacitus and the Annals — Napoleon's Opinion — Wieland' s Eloquence — The Great Painter of Antiquity — Livy and Tacitus — The World's Happiest Age ?

Chapter VII

A Specious Sentiment — Art, Merit, and the Napoleonic Cult — The Corsican's Native Materialism — A Political Momcment — Artists a "Waspish Lot" — Art to Order — Feeding the Fraternity — Economy in Public Architecture —

PAGE

Chapter VII. — contd.

A Napoleonic Art — The Emperor's Dislike of Architects — Some Prices paid to Famous Artists — The Corsican a Connoisseur without Pretensions — Insistence on the Napoleonic Legend — How to hurt Englishmen — The Imperial Reclame — Napoleon's Art Collection at La Malmaison — A List of Pictures

CHAPTER VIII David, the Imperial Painter . . 141

David in 1797 — His Meeting with Bonaparte — A Visit to the Atelier — A Soldier's Bhmt Criticism — " These Military Philistines " — David's Promotion — Bonaparte crossing the Alps — David and his School — A Lover of the Limelight — David and the Coronation — A Painter's Whole Ambition — Gerard and the Coronation Picture — A Happy Suggestion — Pauline Bonaparte and Gerard — Napoleon's Satisfactio7i — David and the Legion — The Douglas Portrait of the Emperor — David and the Peerage

Chapter IX

Canova a Great Philanthropic Spirit — Bonaparte and the Sculptor — Canova' s Independence — The Condition of Rome — Modelling the First Consul — Napoleon as a Sculptor's Subject — An Heroic Statue of the Corsican — Mars and Venus — The Ingenue Pauline — A Chats worth Treasure — Canova and the French Capital — A Bust af Marie Louise — The Farnese Hercules — The Pope's Art Patronage — The Borghese Marbles — The Sculptor's Style — Napoleon and Rome — The Corsican's Cautiousness — Art and Religion — Protestants and Catholics — Arrogance of the Priests — Napoleon on Ccssar — " The Great Man of the Great People " — The Corsican and the Pope — Canova' s Advice to the Emperor — Oligarchic Venice — A Candid Admission — The Day of Wagram — Canova and Marriage — Monsieur de Bouclon's Canonisation

Chapter X

Napoleon on Music — Italian Musicians versus German — National Value of Opera — Napoleon no Musician — His Plans for the Musical Art — The Eroica Symphony of Beethoven — Salaries of Official Singers— A Surprise for Vatican Celibates — La Belle Grassini — The Southern Temperament — Grassini' s Disobedience — Proud Monsieur Paer — Grassini, Wellington and Napoleon — An Intellectual Singer

Chapter XI Page

Modern Views of Religiosity — Newman and Manning — Men and the Atheistic View — Napoleon after the Egyptian Campaign — Real Value of Religion — The Corsican's Essential Unbelief — " An Instinct of Spiritualism " — A Sound German View — The Chevalier de Beauterne — A Napoleonic Press-Agent — The Napoleonic Expression — Man's Simian Disposition — " Christ is no Man " — Beauterne's Puerilities — Cardinal Fesch on his Nephew — Religion postulates a Calvary — Monsieur de Norvins — Napoleon's Mind too positive for Belief— His Taste for Religious Discussion — The Murder ofEnghien — Napoleon's Cynical Explanation — His Choice of National Religious — His Political Horror of Atheists

Chapter XII

Action, the Royal Quality in Man — The Necessity of Religious Training — Dislike of Precocity in Children — Geography and History essential in Early Years — Linguistic Talent no Test of Mentality — Are the Classics valuable? "Bending the Mind to Labour" — Value of Geometrical Studies — The Age of Puberty and its Mystic Revolutions — The Imperial Catechism — Monsieur de Portalis, imperiomaniac — Napoleon and God — Some Questions and Answers — Contempt for Ordinary Intelligence — Cardinal Caprara's Rdle — Napoleon and his Opportunity — The Super-Caligula

Chapter XIII

The Press after Brumaire — Difference between French and English Journalism — Wholesale Suppression of Sheets — Liberty of the Press ceases — Newspaper Morality — Napoleon's Journalistic Prdcis — Monsieur Fidvde, Chief Censor — Le Moniteur becomes Official Organ — Napoleon's Private Paper — Value of Official Organs — Government's Duty to the Nation — Lucus a non Lucendo — A Newspaper without News — Monsieur Suard, Editor — Le Journal des Ddbats — Napoleon and Fractious Editors— Le Mercure de France — Monsieur de Chateaitbriand — Napoleon's own Press Agency — Beugnot and the Emperor — Les Ideologues — La Route d'Antibes — The Adaptable Sub-Editor — The

Chapter XIII. — contd,

PAGE

Hundred Days — Napoleon's Opinion of the Press — Caustic Remarks on Journalists and. Writers — His Earliest Venture as a Newspaper-Owner — The Courrier de I'Armee — Napoleon's Personal Corps of Special Correspondents

Chapter XIV

Bonaparte attracts de Stael — Bonaparte' s Natural Antipathy for Corinne — Augereau and Madame — Chez M. de Talleyrand — Constant and Corinne — Benjamin's Little Inadvertence — De Stael and hey Spokesman — Intrigues against Bonaparte — High Political Ambitions — Vne Femme incompvise — Her Work on Literature — Constant is dismissed — De Stall's Comment — Bernadotte and Corinne — Delphine appears — Bonaparte's Comments — A Pen-Portrait of Corinne — Madame at Weimar, in Vienna and Stockholm — Corinne' s Regard for England — Her Son Augustus — Some Fatherly Advice — Projected Visit to America — De I'Allemagne — A Machine d Mouvement — Napoleon disgusted with her Views — Goethe and de Stael's Work on Germany — The Visit to Russia — " The Conscience of Europe " — Stein and de Stael — Her Essay on Suicide — Goes to London — Byron's Opinion of Corinne— Death in 1817— Gour gaud and Madame — Napoleon's Impartial Opinion of her Qualities

Chapter XV

An Unstoried Celebrity — Biogi and Bonaparte — Philosopher and Artist — Biogi and the Military Art— The Corsican's Affection for him — Poisons and Antidotes — The Battle-field of Rivoli — Berthier and Bonaparte — Biogi dislikes Army Men — Bonaparte as Connoisseur — Gros and the Areola Picture — Biogi' s Description of the Corsican — M. de Chateaubriand — The Vicomte and the First Consul — A Mutual Antipathy — LeGinie du Christianisme — Essentially anti-Catholic — Chateaubriand's Egotism — The Little Man and the Big Quarry— The Vicomte is dismissed— His Colossal Vanity — His Obsession as to Napoleon — Some Expressions of Opinion — " Napoleon and Myself" — Beyle, alias Stendhal — His Literary Pedigree — The Individualistic Touch — His Connection with Napoleon — Stendhal's Idolatry — His Impartiality — France and the Empire — Napoleon's Dead-heads — Stendhal and the ex-Empress Eugenie — An Author's Discretion — Stendhal, Megalomaniac — Napoleon's Trust in him — An Imperial Present — The " Soul" of the Imperial Army— Stupid Officialdom— Napoleon, France's

Chapter XV. — contd.

Greatest Man — His Best Achievement — " The Great Emperor " — A Change of Temper — A Literary Man's Philosophy — Napoleon diminishes — A Final Recantation — " Napoleon was our only Religion "

CHAPTER XVI Imperial Official Theatre . . . 273

One of Napoleon's Chief Ambitions — Instructions to Champagny — Authors and their Rights — Assurance of Remuneration — Where Napoleon failed — Imperial Art mediocre — Limitations of Patronage — Genius discovers itself — Always its own Patron — Imperial Epoch unfavourable to Art — Some Liberal Awards — Tragedy, not Comedy — The Thedtre-Franfais — Decree of Moscow — Napoleon a Real Benefactor — Schools of Dramatic Art — His Liberality to the Histrions — The Dresden Bill — His Practical Patronage — His Friends among the Illuminati — Did he like Artists ? — Remarks by Rimusat — After Marengo — A Line from Cinna — The Murder of Enghien

CHAPTER XVII Conclusion . . . . . 283

Kircheisen's Bibliography of Napoleon — One Book wanting — The Temperamental Aspect of Bonaparte — The " Napoleon" Test of Nationality — A Modern Imitator — The Imperishable Corsican

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE REAL NAPOLEON. By Vigneux . Frontispiece

TALMA AS NERO . . .To face page 76

THE CORONATION. By David . „ 154

THE CHATSWORTH NAPOLEON. By Canova ,, 168

PAULINE BONAPARTE AS VENUS VICTRIX.

By Canova ... ,, 218

MADAME DE STAEL, 1804. By Godefroy „ 248

DAEDALUS AND ICARUS. By Canova „ 278

IS

Chapter I The Genesis Of Napoleon

The Rule of Heredity— Man the Supersimian — Role of the Spinal Column — A Cynical Truism—Napoleons Splendid Eqicipjne7it—Lord Acton's View— Social Origins of the Bonapartes— Their Middle-class Status — The Nursery of Fame— Corsica and its Natives- Napoleons Regard for his Island Home— Bonaparte s Ligurian Ancestry— King Theodore of Corsica— His Relationship to the Bonapartes — Paoli and Bonaparte pere — The Bonapartes as Men of Law — A Lawyer s Importance in Ajaccio— Ancestral Pretensions of Bonaparte pere--Phe7io?nenal Types and New Blood

Factions of the Mala and Buona Parte— Ajaccio and Napoleon s Ancestors— The Aristocrats of the Pale— The Provincialism of the Bonapartes — Their Love of Learning— Their Esprit de Foyer— The Spirit of the Clan — Napoleons Mania of Superiority— His Jealousy of Famous Men — His Opinion about Ccesar, Hannibal, Alexander — Relations with his Master Generals — Le Harnais Militaire — Napoleon's Master Passion

REPRODUCTION of the immediate and normal stock is the rule of heredity, the experts tell us ; whereas reproduction of the remote and phenomenal is the exception. The supersimian called Man inherits intuitions, instincts, predispositions and temperamental traits from his ancestors, even as he reproduces their physical attributes and tendencies. This being the case, we deduce correctly when we say man's destiny is not so much what is to be, as what has been, and those eugenists are probably right who declare the drab and unpoetical truth — namely, that in the last analysis man's spinal cord is his very self, his nature and potential — that which fits or unfits him for the fight in life, which determines his character, his courage and his driving force, which makes him the clever or the inept animal among the human herd, which decides for his annals as they shall be — humble, mediocre, or the opposite. Fontenelle, the distinguished nephew of the great Corneille, told the unhappy truth, we fear, when he said that for supreme success or domination in the world there was one prime requisite, and he named it when he wrote the phrase: "a callous heart in a sound body." Put this axiom of worldly wisdom beside one of the profoundest and most cogent verdicts we have yet seen contributed to the explanation of the eternal Corsican — in effect, that the wonderful mind of Napoleon was lodged in a wonderful body,'

' Napoleon : The Last Phase.

i8

GENEALOGY OF NAPOLEON 19

and we find ourselves on the way to divining the personaUty of the being whom Cardinal Newman once described as a Miracle of Natm^e.

And yet Lord Acton was, after all, right : the more we study the Corsican in the light of historical documents, the less a Colossus does he appear, though perhaps he grows nearer, being found to be so human a creature, to the sympathetic student's heart. Not only as a man and a statesman does he lose stature, as we investigate the method by which he sought at all costs to stamp one vast impression of himself upon the page of History ; he even dwindles as a soldier, and the day has gone for good, we think, when men could solemnly accept such a verdict as the following, rendered by Lockhart and subscribed to in the main by two generations of the Victorian century :

" Nations yet to come will look back upon his history, as to some grand and supernatural romance. The fiery energy of his youthful career, and the magnificent progress of his irresistible ambition have invested his character with the mysterious grandeur of some heavenly appearance ; and when all the lesser tumults and lesser men of our age shall have passed away into the darkness of oblivion, history will still inscribe one mighty era with the majestic age of Napoleon."

Given the theory of ancestral environment, the genealogy of Napoleon becomes of first-class importance if we wish to understand, or come near to an understanding of, that momentous personality which to a large extent has set the

20 i THE GENESIS OF NAPOLEON

fashion in spectacular greatness ever since its appearance in the world at the close of the eighteenth century. In the case of great men, says Stendhal, biographers are apt to fall into one of two excesses : either they attribute a fabulous ancestry to their heroes, or else out of sheer envy and malice, they seek to show that those of whom they write were of far lower and meaner origin than was actually the case. This has been so with Napoleon, though all attempts either to exalt or to abase him in respect of his ancestry, have resulted only in forcing us to recognise the truth of La Bruyere's assertion — namely, that there are no families in the world, whether exalted or plebeian, which, could we accurately trace their pedigrees, would not be found to touch the loftiest origins, at one particular point, and the lowliest at some other.

The Bonapartes had already been several generations in Corsica when Napoleon was born, and his four great-grandfathers, Bonaparte, Paravisino (Paravicini), Ramolino and Pietra-Santa were all of grandparents born in the highland canton of Lunegiana, under the Ligurian Apennines and about forty miles direct east from Genoa. There is little doubt, we think, for all the attempts to confer an exalted social ancestry upon Napoleon, that his forbears for six generations before his birth had occupied in Corsica a local position corresponding, we may suppose, to the minor lairds of Scotland, and there is no question that the subsequent ennobling of certain Corsican

TRIBE OF BUONAPARTE 21

families about 1770— including the Bonapartes — by a royal decree of Louis XVI., was due solely to the policy of bringing the newly annexed islanders into social and political alignment with the system in France, even as Napoleon was to ennoble certain of his " gentle peasants " of Holland in 1810. That in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the tribe of Buonaparte had occupied high political position in Italy, is much less certain than that their name had been inscribed on several civic golden books, like that of Treviso, simply because members of the race had filled more or less important magistracies and aldermanships in their home towns ; and on the whole we are of opinion not only that so titanic an energy, physical and mental, as that of Napoleon could never have sprung from a very ancient line of leisurely or even refined aristocrats, but that this very energy, whether in its personal, its political or in its social symptoms, bore at all times the impress of having come from the common source of nearly all names which achieve a universal fame — to wit, the educated or upper classes, as apart from the patriciate, and of course education here means very much more than mere instruction, or academic learning.

Corsica is far from being without its ancient chronicle, and Seneca is said to have declared of its inhabitants that their first law was the law of vengeance. A Corsican writer of the Middle Ages, Petrus Cyrnoeus, already told the world that " the Corsicans are a factious race and live only for glory. Vengeance is the mainspring of their code of honour, and in order to avenge an insult or an injury, they will move heaven, earth and hell to obtain full satisfaction. Whether he be dead or alive, beware of the Corsican who has not avenged himself on an aggressor." The stories of Corsican vendette, we are all acquainted with, and even Napoleon was the object of one of these throughout his career, his enemy, Pozzo di Borgo, a distant relative by marriage, never having forgiven him the fact that when both were candidates for a colonelcy of Corsican national guards, the preference had been given to the future emperor. We are inclined to think, however, that too much importance has been attached to Pozzo's diplomatic activities during the Empire, more particularly when it is asserted that ideas of vengeance were really the inspiration of his enmity for Napoleon, as well as of the many intrigues by which he sought to destroy the imperial fabric. The method of attaining to fame by attacking one who has already attained to fame has, it is well known, been a favourite one among doomed mediocrities of all ages, and the Emperor's relentless compatriot does not appear ever at any time to have proved insensible of his opportunity. Napoleon has been accused of having had no love for Corsica, just as he has been accused of looking upon France '' as a throne rather than a nation," to quote an illustrious Russian. Here, in point, is what the Emperor himself, when at St Helena, had to say of his native island :

A RACIAL PUZZLE 23

" The Corsicans have always had something in them of a race apart, and this is due to their insular position, which preserves them from contact with the mixed peoples of the mainland. Corsican highlanders possess an energy of character and a firmness of soul which are entirely peculiar to them. And as for the beauty of that little island — nothing could exceed it. Even the very presence of its soil I could note with eyes closed, and I have never known its like anywhere. I can see myself there in my earliest years and my first affections, tricking my way round the mountain precipices, climbing the loftiest peaks, careering down the passes and playing in the silent valleys, ever the most devoted of partisans in my family's feuds, and taking sides with all my kith and kin in a vendetta which went back seven generations. ... I even thought of taking refuge there in 1815, and am certain that I should have w^on over all the inhabitants, who would have accepted me as their King and who would have been to me as one great family. Do you think that even fifty thousand of the Allied troops would have ventured to attack me there ? And even if they had, to what end — to gain what ? "

Are the Corsicans to be numbered among the racial puzzles of the world ? They are said to have sprung originally from some remote Iberian stock, and characteristics which have been found among the people of Albania, of the Basque countries and the Berbers of Northern Africa, are admitted by anthropologists to be common to the inhabitants of the island. In the course of the early ages, the Phoenicians — as in Ireland, be it noted, which is famous for its reproduction of the Napoleonic type — the Carthaginians, the Ligurians and the Iberians founded small and nomadic colonies, until the Greeks finally established a civilisation there some six centuries before Christ. Subsequently, on account of their piratical practices, they were driven thence by the people of Etruria, who succeeded in finally and permanently impressing their cachet on the islanders. The Bonapartes, as we have seen, were of Ligurian origin, and in the earliest days of Roman civilisation, the people of Liguria were held to be of Germano-Gallic rather than Italic stock, which was short and broad-headed, while the Ligurians were tall and long-headed — the family type of the Napoleons, to which their great chief proved, however, an exception. All writers, ancient as well as modern, agreed in attributing one salient characteristic to the Corsicans — namely, that they appeared to consider themselves superior to other races, and would voluntarily engage in no servile or menial work ; the native was sober, obliging, hospitable, grateful, a firm friend, a terrible enemy, logical, practical, inclined to be sultanic in his treatment of women, intriguing and always very curious to know what the other man was doing, expansive with his friends, silent and reserved with strangers. A German writer, Razel, declares that until the eighteenth century no Corsican generation had

THE PROUD ISLANDERS 25

existed which had not known either invasion or civil war — an important point.

Diodorus Siculus said of these islanders that the hardest Roman slave-masters dared not subject them to the ordinary tasks of other helots on account of their rebellious and intractable character. *'They will not live in slavery," says Strabo, " and if they do not kill themselves before submitting to the degradation of low menial work, they so conduct themselves as to make their masters regret the money expended on their purchase." After the fall of the Roman Empire, Corsica, in the seventh century, they teach, came under the domination of Constantinople and then received that strong religious impress which informs the general character of the native with a mysticism that is hardly to be differentiated from superstition. Charlemagne handed them over to the Popes in the tenth century, and the Saracens carried fire and sword through the island in the eleventh, after which a feudalism of a Germanic type settled for some centuries upon the country, administered and inspired in the main by high Ligurian officials. Nevertheless the spirit of the clan was ever so powerful a characteristic of Corsican society, that the feudal lords practised a larger liberalism in their exactions from, and their dealings with, the proud islanders than was customary, under the system, with less independent races. Every Corsican became a rebel at the first sign of oppression on the part of his lord, and so there grew up a society of men who would acknowledge no masters — another important point.

It is not surprising, therefore, to find them in 1730 declaring an entire independence of Genoa and, at the outbreak of hostilities, inaugurating a theological council which, by asserting that justice was on the side of the revolting islanders, gave to the whole uprising the character of a holy war. The Genoese called in the help of several corps of German troops of the Emperor Charles VI., under the command of the Prince of Wurtemberg, who was only too pleased to sign a treaty of peace with the invincible islanders in 1732. In 1736 a German adventurer of noble birth. Baron Theodore von Neuhof, arrived in the port of Aleria, and having assured the popular leaders of his possession of great influence at the courts of Europe, offered to undertake the final liberation of the island from Genoese tyranny. Eventually, after the distribution of considerable largess, Theodore was named King of Corsica, and besides founding a nobihty, also inaugurated many civic reforms, invited foreign industrialists to take up residence in Corsica, disciplined the army and ultimately attacked Genoa. Success did not attend on his extrainsular military expeditions, however, and he soon found himself obliged to have recourse to his great diplomatic and poHtical friends on the mainland. He left the island, appointing a regency of four persons, one of whom was Jacopo Ornano, a blood relation of the Bonapartes.

CHARLES DE BONAPARTE 27

Theodore came back in 1738, but only for a short while, and left again for the Continent, entrusting all interests to his great-nephew Baron Drost, who afterwards, be it noted, married a lady of the Bonaparte tribe. The King again returned to the island in 1743, provided with plenty of arms and munitions ; he had grown despotic, however, during his exile, and being badly received by the popular leaders, went back to London, where he was arrested for debt and spent several years in the Fleet, until released by the good offices of Horace Walpole. All of which we mention only to show that the adventure of bold and successful usurpation was certainly not lacking among the inspirations which subsequently moved the young soldier of Italy to exalted self- promotion.

In the stirring days when Paoli took command of affairs in Corsica, he employed the services of Charles Bonaparte, father of Napoleon, as personal secretary. This gentleman had married, at the age of eighteen, a beautiful girl of fifteen, Letitia Ramolino. It is worth noting that apart from the fact that this alliance was a genuine love match — always an important condition for the children issuing — it contained many other elements of a Romeo-and-Juliet type, since the Ramolini were really of the Genoese faction, while the Bonapartes were of the insurgent side — Guelphs and Ghibellines, again, on a minor scale, or Capulets and Montagues of Verona. Like the honourable wife and mother she ever proved herself, Letitia gave up her hfe with singular devotion to the interests of her husband's people, and ruled the family home at Ajaccio with the impartial severity and justice of a Roman matron. The old home of the Bonapartes no longer exists, it may be said, for all the venal assurances of the local ciceroni. The actual house, near the site of the present one, was much smaller, and the Bonaparte family rented only half of it at that — some indication, we may presume, that their means were of a limited extent/ In 1771 Charles Bonaparte, who was a Doctor of Law, had been appointed a kind of exec!utive judge (giudice assesore) to the high court of Ajaccio, a town which boasted at that time a population of 3000 inhabitants. The name Napoleon was common enough in Corsica in several families with which the Bonapartes were connected, and was spelled impartially Napoleone, Nabulione, Lapulione, NapoUone, and was probably derived from the old Genoese patronymic Nebulone.

The Bonapartes had relatives in nearly all classes of the local society, but the majority of the allied families were small landowners who also engaged in the wine and corn trades. Charles Bonaparte, as a member of the high court — with £40 a year as a stipend ! — was admittedly the

^ It has been estimated that the Bonapartes lived for several years on less than ;^ioo a year. Those who are at all acquainted with the 7n6nages of provincial Italy are well aware that such a sum is often made to go to very respectable lengths— for middle-class Italians.

AN ISLAND COMMUNITY 29

head of the family alhance, more particularly when he had been chosen member of the commission of twelve representative Corsican nobles. There is no doubt whatever, we think, that though Bonaparte yere was disposed to be something of a spendthrift and a high liver, he was a man of considerable refinement, great literary tastes, ever looking to the advancement of his family. To this end, indeed, he engaged in several schemes which caused his integrity to be called in question more than once, and like the good time-server he was, saw no harm in making the public treasury pay the limit for his services. So we find him writing to M. de Calonne, in 1784, asking for assistance :