CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEENLIEUTENANT PUSS-IN-BOOTS

Napoleon returned to his studies after his father's death, poorer than ever in pocket, and greatly distressed over his mother's condition.

For Charles Bonaparte's death had taken away from the family its main support. The income of their uncle, the canon, was hardly sufficient for the family's needs. Joseph gave up his endeavors, and returned to Corsica to help his mother. But Napoleon remained at the military school; for his future depended upon his completing his studies, and securing a position in the army.

How much the boy had his mother in his thoughts, you may judge from this letter which he wrote her a month after his father's death:

MY DEAR MOTHER,—Now that time has begun to soften the first transports of my sorrow. I hasten to express to you the gratitude I feel for all the kindness you have always displayed toward us. Console yourself, dear mother, circumstances require that you should. We will redouble our care and our gratitude, happy if, by our obedience, we can make up to you in the smallest degree for the inestimable loss of a cherished husband I finish, dear mother,—my grief compels it—by praying you to calm yours. My health is perfect, and my daily prayer is that Heaven may grant you the same. Convey my respects to my Aunt Gertrude, to Nurse Saveria, and to my Aunt Fesch.

Your very humble and affectionate son,

NAPOLEON.

At the same time he wrote to his kind old uncle, the Canon Lucien, saying: "It would be useless to tell you how deeply I have felt the blow that has just fallen upon us. We have lost a father; and God alone knows what a father, and what were his attachment and devotion to us. Alas! everything taught us to look to him as the support of our youth. But the will of God is unalterable. He alone can console us."

These letters from a boy of sixteen would scarcely give one the idea that Napoleon was the selfish and sullen youth that his enemies are forever picturing; they rather show him as he was,—quiet, reserved, reticent, but with a heart that could feel for others, and a sympathy that strove to lessen, for the mother he loved, the burden of sorrow and of loss.

That the death of his father, and the "hard times" that came upon the Bonapartes through the loss of their chief bread-winner, did sober the boy Napoleon, and made him even more retiring and reserved, there is no doubt. His old friend, General Marbeuf, was no longer in condition to help him; and, indeed, Napoleon's pride would not permit him to receive aid from friends, even when it was forced upon him.

"I am too poor to run into debt," he declared.

So he became again a hermit, as in the early days at Brienne school. He applied himself to his studies, read much, and longed for the day when he should be transferred from the school to the army.

The day came sooner than even he expected. He had scarcely been a year at the Paris school when he was ordered to appear for his final examination. Whether it was because his teachers pitied his poverty, and wished him to have a chance for himself, or whether because, as some would have us believe, they wished to be rid of a scholar who criticised their methods, and was fault-finding, unsocial, and "exasperating," it is at least certain that the boy took his examinations, and passed them satisfactorily, standing number forty in a class of fifty-eight.

"You are a lucky boy, my Napoleon," said his roommate, Alexander des Mazes; "see! you are ahead of me. I am number fifty-six; pretty near to the foot that, eh?"

"Near enough, Alexander," Napoleon replied; "but I love you fifty-six times better than any of the other boys; and what would you have, my friend? Are not we two of the six selected for the artillery? That is some compensation. Now let us apply for an appointment in the same regiment."

They did so, and secured each a lieutenancy in an artillery regiment. This, however, was not hard to secure; for the artillery service was considered the hardest in the army; and the lazy young nobles and gentlemen of the Paris military school had no desire for real work.

The certificate given to Napoleon upon his graduation read thus:—"This young man is reserved and studious, he prefers study to any amusement, and enjoys reading the best authors, applies himself earnestly to the abstract sciences, cares little for anything else. He is silent, and loves solitude. He is capricious, haughty, and excessively egotisical, talks little, but is quick and energetic in his replies, prompt and severe in his repartees, has great pride and ambition, aspiring to any thing. The young man is worthy of patronage."

And upon the margin of the report one of the examining officers wrote this extra indorsement—

"A Corsican by character and by birth. If favored by circumstances, this young man will rise high."

Napoleon's school-life was over. On the first of September, 1785, he received the papers appointing him second-lieutenant in the artillery regiment, named La Fère (or "the sword"), and was ordered to report at the garrison at Valence. His room-mate and friend, Alexander des Mazes, was appointed to the same regiment.

It was a proud day for the boy of sixteen. At last his school-life was at an end. He was to go into the world as a man and a soldier.

I am afraid he did not look very much like a man, even if he felt that he was one. But he put on his uniform of lieutenant, and in high spirits set off to visit his friends, the Permons.

They lived in a house on one of the river streets—Monsieur and Madame Permon, and their two daughters, Cecilia and Laura.

Now, both these daughters were little girls, and as ready to see the funny side of things as little girls usually are.

So when Lieutenant Napoleon Bonaparte, aged sixteen, came into the room, proud of his new uniform, and feeling that he looked very smart, Laura glanced at Cecilia, and Cecilia smiled at Laura, and then both girls began to laugh.

Madam Permon glanced at them reprovingly, while welcoming the young lieutenant with pleasant words.

But the boy felt that the girls were laughing at him, and he turned to look at himself in the mirror to see what was wrong.

Nothing was wrong. It was simply Napoleon; but Napoleon just then was not a handsome boy. Longhaired, large-headed, sallow-faced, stiff-stocked, and feeling very new in his new uniform (which could not be very gorgeous, however, because the boy's pocket would not admit of any extras in the way of adornment on decoration), he was, I expect, rather a pinched-looking, queer-looking boy; and, moreover, his boots were so big, and his legs were so thin, that the legs appeared lost in the boots.

As he glanced at himself in the mirror, the girls giggled again, and their mother said,—

"Silly ones, why do you laugh? Is our new uniform so marvellous a change that you do not recognize Lieutenant Bonaparte?"

"Lieutenant Bonaparte, mamma!" cried fun-loving Laura. "No, no! not that. See! is not Napoleon for all the world like—like Lieutenant Puss-in-Boots?"

Whereupon they laughed yet more merrily, and Napoleon laughed with them.

"My boots are big, indeed," he said; "too big, perhaps; but I hope to grow into them. How was it with Puss-in-Boots, girls? He filled his well at last, did he not? You will be sorry you laughed at me, some day, when I march into your house, a big, fat general. Come, let us go and see Eliza. They may go with me, eh, Madame?"

"Yes; go with the lieutenant, children," said Madame Permon.

179.jpg (88K)

So they all went to call on Eliza, at the school of St. Cyr, and you may be sure that she admired her brother, the new lieutenant, boots and all. And as they came home, Napoleon took the little girls into a toy-store, and bought for them a toy-carriage, in which he placed a doll dressed as Puss-in-boots.

"It is the carriage of the Marquis of Carabas, my children," he said, as they went to the Permons' house by the river. "And when I am at Valence, you will look at this, and think again of your friend, Lieutenant Puss-in-Boots."

But between the date of his commission and his orders to join his regiment at Valence a whole month passed, in which time Napoleon's funds ran very low. Indeed, he was so completely penniless, that, when the orders did come, Napoleon had nothing; and his friend Alexander had just enough to get them both to Lyons.

"What shall we do? I have nothing left, Napoleon," said Alexander; "and Valence is still miles away."

"We can walk, Alexander," said Napoleon.

"But one must eat, my friend," Alexander replied ruefully. For boys of sixteen have good appetites, and do not like to go hungry.

"True, one must eat," said Napoleon. "Ah, I have it! We will call upon Monsieur Barlet." Now, Monsieur Barlet was a friend of the Bonapartes, and had once lived in Corsica. So both boys hunted him up, and Napoleon told their story.

"Well, my valiant soldiers of the king," laughed Monsieur Barlet, "what is the best way out? Come; fall back on your training at the military school. What line of conduct, my Napoleon, would you adopt, if you were besieged in a fortress and were destitute of provisions?"

"My faith, sir," answered Napoleon promptly, "so long as there were any provisions in the enemy's camp I would never go hungry."

Monsieur Barlet laughed heartily.

"By which you mean," he said, "that I am the enemy's camp, and you propose to forage on me for provisions, eh? Good, very good, that! See, then, I surrender. Accept, most noble warriors, a tribute from the enemy."

And with that he gave the boys a little money, and a letter of introduction to his friend at Valence, the Abbe (or Reverend) Saint Raff.

But Lyons is a pleasant city, where there is much to see and plenty to do. So, when the boys left Lyons, they had spent most of Monsieur Barlet's "tip"; and, to keep the balance for future use, they fell back on their original intention, and walked all the way from Lyons to Valence.

Thus it was that Napoleon joined his regiment; and on the fifth of November 1785, he and Alexander, foot-sore, but full of boyish spirits, entered the old garrison-town of Valence in Southern France, and were warmly welcomed by Alexander's older brother, Captain Gabriel des Mazes, of the La Fère regiment, who at once took the boys in charge, and introduced them to their new life as soldiers of the garrison of Valence.

CHAPTER SEVENTEENDARK DAYS

It does not take boys and girls long to find out that realization is not always equal to anticipation. Especially is this so with thoughtful, sober-minded boys like the young Napoleon.

At first, on his arrival at Valence, as lieutenant in his regiment, he set out to have a good time.

He took lodging with an old maid who let out rooms to young officers, in a house on Grand Street, in the town of Valence. Her name was Mademoiselle Bon. She kept a restaurant and billiard—room; and Napoleon's room was on the first floor, fronting the street, and next to the noisy billiard—room. This was not a particularly favorable place for a boy to pursue his studies; and at first Napoleon seem disposed to make the most of what boys would call his "freedom." He went to balls and parties; became a "great talker;" took dancing lessons of Professor Dautre, and tried to become what is called a "society man."

But it suited neither his tastes nor his desires, and made a large hole in his small pay as lieutenant. Indeed, after paying for his board and lodging, he had left only about seven dollars a month to spend for clothes and "fun." So he soon tired of this attempt to keep up appearances on a little money. He took to his books again, studying philosophy, geography, history, and mathematics. He thought he might make a living by his pen, and concluded to become an author. So he began writing a history of his native island—Corsica.

He even tried a novel, but boys of seventeen are not very well fitted for real literary work, and his first attempts were but poor affairs. His reading in history and geography drew his attention to Asia; and he always had a boyish dream of what he should like to attempt and achieve in the half-fabled land of India, where he believed great success and vast riches were to be secured by an ambitious young man, who had knowledge of military affairs, and the taste for leadership. At last he was ordered away on active service; first to suppress what was known as the "Two-cent Rebellion" in Lyons, and after that to the town of Douay in Belgium.

If was while there that bad news came to him from Corsica. His family was again in trouble. His mother had tried silkworm raising, and failed; his uncle the canon was very sick; his good friend and the patron of the family, General Marbeuf, was dead; his brothers were unsuccessful in getting positions or employment; and something must be done to help matters in the big bare house in Ajaccio.

Worried over the news, Napoleon tried to get leave of absence, so as to go to Corsica and see what he could do. But this favor was not granted him. His anxiety made him low-spirited; this brought on an attack of fever. The leave of absence was granted him because he was sick; and early in 1787 he went home to Corsica.

He had been absent from home for eight years. At once he tried to set matters on a better footing. He fixed up the little house at Melilli, which had belonged to his mother's father; tried to help his mother in her attempts at mulberry-growing for the silkworms; saw that his brother Joseph was enabled to go into the oil-trade; brightened up his uncle the canon with his political discussions and a correspondence with a famous French physician as to the cure for his uncle's gout; and finally, being recalled to his regiment, went back to Paris, and joined his regiment at Auxonne.

While in garrison at this place, he lodged with Professor Lombard, a teacher of mathematics, whom he sometimes assisted in his classes. He worked hard, kept out of debt, ate little, and was "poor, but proud." He gained the esteem of his superiors; for in a letter to Joey Fesch, who was now a priest, he wrote:

"The general here thinks very well of me; so much so, that he has ordered me to construct a polygon,—works for which great calculations are necessary,—and I am hard at work at the head of two hundred men. This unheard-of mark of favor has somewhat irritated the captains against me; they declare it is insulting to them that a lieutenant should be intrusted with so important a work, and that, when more than thirty men are employed, one of them should not have been sent out also. My comrades also have shown some jealousy, but it will pass. What troubles me is my health, which does not seem to me very good."

Indeed, it was not very good. He was just at the age when a young fellow needs all the good food, healthful exercise, and restful sleep that are possible; and these Napoleon did not permit himself. The doctor of his regiment told him he must take better care of himself; but that he did not, we know from this scrap from a letter to his mother:—

"I have no resources but work. I dress but once in eight days, for the Sunday parade. I sleep but little since my illness; it is incredible. I go to bed at ten o'clock, and get up at four in the morning. I take but one meal a day, at three o'clock. But that is good for my health."

The boy probably added that last line to keep his mother from feeling anxious. But it was not true. Such a life for a growing boy is very bad for his health. Again Napoleon fell ill, obtained six months' sick leave, and went again to Corsica. This visit was a much longer one than the first. In fact, he overstayed his leave; got into trouble with the authorities because of this; smoothed it over; regained his health; wrote and worked; mixed himself up in Corsican politics; became a fiery young advocate of liberty; and at last, after a year's absence from France, returned to join his regiment at Auxonne, taking with him his young brother, Louis, whom he had agreed to support and educate.

It was quite a burden for this young man of twenty to assume. But Napoleon undertook it cheerfully, he was glad to be able to do anything that should lighten his mother's burdens.

The brothers did not have a particularly pleasant home at Auxonne. They lived in a bare room in the regimental barracks, "Number 16," up one flight of stairs. It was wretchedly furnished. It contained an uncurtained bed, a table, two chairs, and an old wooden box, which the boys used, both as bureau and bookcase. Louis slept on a little cot-bed near his brother; and how they lived on sixty cents a day—paying out of that for food, lodging, clothes, and books—is one of the mysteries.

006n.jpg (119K)["'I dreamed that I was a king,' said Louis"]

["'I dreamed that I was a king,' said Louis"]

In fact, they nearly starved themselves. Napoleon made the broth; brushed and mended their clothes; sometimes had only dry bread for a meal; and, as Napoleon said later, "bolted the door on his poverty." That is to say, they went nowhere, and saw no one.

It was hard on the young lieutenant; it was perhaps even harder on the little brother.

One morning, after Napoleon had dressed himself and was preparing their poor breakfast, he knocked on the floor with his cane to arouse his brother and call him to breakfast and studies.

Little Louis awoke so slowly that Napoleon was obliged to arouse him a second time.

"Come, come, my Louis," he cried; "what is the matter this morning? It seems to me that you are very lazy."

"Oh, brother!" answered the half-awaked child, "I was having such a beautiful dream!"

"And what did you dream?" asked Napoleon.

The little Louis sat upright on the edge of his cot. "I dreamed that I was a king," he replied.

"A king! Well, well!" exclaimed his brother, laughing. Then he glanced around at the bare and poverty-stricken room. "And what, then, your Majesty, was I, your brother,—an emperor perhaps?" Then he shrugged his shoulders, and pinched his brother's ear.

"Well, kings and emperors must eat and work," he said, "the same as lieutenants and schoolboys. Come, then, King Louis; some broth, and then to your duty."

This was Napoleon at twenty,—a poverty-pinched, self-sacrificing, hard-working boy, a man before his time; knowing very little of fun and comfort, and very much of toil and trouble.

He was an ill-proportioned young man, not yet having outgrown the "spindling" appearance of his boyhood, but even then he possessed certain of the remarkable features familiar to every boy and girl who has studied the portraits of Napoleon the emperor. His head was large and finely shaped, with a wide forehead, large mouth, and straight nose, a projecting chin, and large, steel-blue eyes, that were full of fire and power. His face was sallow, his hair brown and stringy, his cheeks lean from not too much over-feeding. His body and lees were thin and small, but his chest was broad, and his neck short and thick. His step was firm and steady, with nothing of the "wobbly" gait we often see in people who are not well-proportioned. His character was undoubtedly that of a young man who had the desire to get ahead faster than his opportunities would permit. Solitude had made him uncommunicative and secretive; anxiety and privation had made him self-helpful and self-reliant; lack of sympathy had made him calculating; but doing for others had made him kind-hearted and generous. His reading and study had made him ambitious; his knowledge that when he knew a thing he really knew it, made him masterful and desirous of leadership. He had few of the vices, and sowed but a small crop of what is called the "wild oats" of youth; he abhorred debt, and scarcely ever owed a penny, even when in sorest straits; and, while not a bright nor a great scholar, what he had learned he was able to store away in his brain, to be drawn upon for use when, in later years, this knowledge could be used to advantage.

007n.jpg (114K)Lieutenant Napoleon Bonaparte Aged 22 (from the portrait by Jean Baptiste Greuse, in the Museum at Versailles)]

Lieutenant Napoleon Bonaparte Aged 22 (from the portrait by Jean Baptiste Greuse, in the Museum at Versailles)]

Such at twenty years of age was Napoleon Bonaparte. Such he remained through the years of his young manhood, meeting all sorts of discouragements, facing the hardest poverty, becoming disgusted with many things that occurred in those changing days, when liberty was replacing tyranny, and the lesson of free America was being read and committed by the world.

He saw the turmoil and terrors of the French Revolution—that season of blood, when a long-suffering people struck a blow at tyranny, murdered their king, and tried to build on the ruins of an overturned kingdom an impossible republic.

You will understand all this better when you come to read the history of France, and see through how many noble but mistaken efforts that fair European land struggled from tyranny to freedom. In these efforts Napoleon had a share; and it was his boyhood of privation and his youth of discouragement that made him a man of purpose, of persistence and endeavor, raising him step by step, in the days when men needed leaders but found none, until this one finally proved himself a leader indeed, and, grasping the reins of command, advanced steadily from the barracks to a throne. All this is history; it is the story of the development and progress of the most remarkable man of modern times. You can read the story in countless books; for now, after Napoleon has been dead for over seventy years, the world is learning to sift the truth from all the chaff of falsehood and fable that so long surrounded him; it is endeavoring to place this marvellous leader of men in the place he should rightly occupy—that of a great man, led by ambition and swayed by selfishness, but moved also by a desire to do noble things for the nation that he had raised to greatness, and the men who looked to him for guidance and direction.

Our story of his boyhood ends here. For years after he came to young manhood fate seemed against him, and privation held him down. But he broke loose from all entanglements; he surmounted all obstacles; he conquered all adverse circumstances. He rose to power by his own abilities. He led the armies of France to marvellous victories. He became the idol of his soldiers, the hero of the people, the chief man in the nation, the controlling power in Europe; and on the second of December, in the year 1804, he was crowned in the great church of Notre Dame, in Paris, Emperor of the French. "Straw-nose," the poverty-stricken little Corsican, had become the foremost man in all the world!

But through all his marvellous career he never forgot his family. The same love and devotion that he bestowed upon them when a poor boy and a struggling lieutenant, he lavished upon them as general, consul, and emperor. Indeed, to them was due, to a certain extent, his later misfortunes, and his fall from power. The more generous he became, the more selfish did his brothers and sisters grow. For their interests he neglected his own safety and the welfare of France. His unselfishness was, indeed, his greatest selfishness; and the boy who uncomplainingly took his sister's punishment for the theft of the basket of fruit, stood also as the scapegoat for all the mistakes and stupidities and wrong-doings that were due to his self-seeking brothers and sisters, the Bonaparte children of Ajaccio in Corsica.

CHAPTER EIGHTEENBY THE WALL OF THE SOLDIERS' HOME

The Emperor Napoleon had long been dead. A wasting disease and English indignities had worn his life away upon his prison-rock of St. Helena; and, after many years, his body had been brought back to France, and placed beneath a mighty monument in the splendid Home for Invalid Soldiers, in the beautiful city of Paris which he had loved so much, and where his days of greatness and power had been spent.

There, beneath the dome, surrounded by all the life and brilliancy of the great city, he rests. His last wish has been gratified—the wish he expressed in the will he wrote on his prison-rock, so many miles away: "I desire that my ashes shall rest by the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people I have loved so well."

That Home for Invalid Soldiers, in which now stands the tomb of Napoleon, has long been, as its name implies, a home for the maimed and aged veterans who have fought in the armies of France, and received as their portion, wounds, illness,—and glory.

The sun shines brightly upon the walls of the great home; and the war-worn veterans dearly love to bask in its life-giving rays, or to rest in the shade of its towering walls.

It was on a certain morning, many years ago, that I who write these lines—Eugenie Foa, friend to all the boys and girls who love to read of glorious and heroic deeds—was resting upon one of the seats near to the shade-giving walls of the Soldiers' Home. As I sat there, several of the old soldiers placed themselves on the adjoining seat. There were a half-dozen of them—all veterans, grizzled and gray, and ranging from the young veteran of fifty to the patriarch of ninety years.

As is always the case with these scarred old fellows, their talk speedily turned upon the feats at arms at which they had assisted. And this dialogue was so enlivening, so picturesque, so full of the hero-spirit that lingers ever about the walls of that noble building which is a hero's resting-place, that I gladly listened to their talk, and try now to repeat it to you.

"But those Egyptians whom Father Nonesuch, here, helped to conquer," one old fellow said,—"ah, they were great story-tellers! I have read of some of them in a mightily fine book. It was called the 'Tales of the Thousand and One Nights.'"

"Bah!" cried the eldest of the group. "Bah! I say. Your 'Thousand and One Nights,' your fairy stories, all the wonders of nature,"—here he waved his trembling old hand excitedly,—"all these are but as nothing compared with what I have seen."

"Hear him!" exclaimed the young fellow of fifty; "hear old Father Nonesuch, will you, comrades? He thinks, because he has seen the republic, the consulate, the empire, the hundred days, the kingdom"—

"And is not that enough, youngster?" interrupted the old veteran they called Father Nonesuch.[1]

[1] Perhaps the correct rendering of this nickname would be "The Remnant," and it applies to the battered veteran even better than "Nonesuch."]

He certainly merited the nickname given him by his comrades; for I saw, by glancing at him, that the old veteran had but one leg, one arm, and one eye.

"Enough?" echoed the one called "the youngster," whose grizzled locks showed him to be at least fifty years old, "Enough? Well, perhaps—for you. But, my faith! I cannot see that they were finer than the 'Thousand and one Nights.'"

"Bah!" again cried old Nonesuch contemptuously; "but those were fairy stories, I tell you, youngster,—untrue stories,—pagan stories. But when one can tell, as can I, of stories that are true,—of history—history this—history that—true histories every one—bah!" and, shrugging his shoulders, old Nonesuch tapped upon his neighbor's snuff-box, and, with his only hand, drew out a mighty pinch by way of emphasis.

"Well, what say thou, Nonesuch,—you and your histories?" persisted the young admirer of the "Arabian Nights."

"As for me,—my faith! I like only marvellous."

008n.jpg (106K)[Illustration: "Beneath the great dome he rests"—The Hotel des Invalides(The 'Soldiers' Home' in Paris, containing the Tomb of Napoleon)]

[Illustration: "Beneath the great dome he rests"—The Hotel des Invalides(The 'Soldiers' Home' in Paris, containing the Tomb of Napoleon)]

"And I tell you this, youngster," the old veteran cried, while his voice cracked into a tremble in his excitement, "there is more of the marvellous in the one little finger of my history than in all the characters you can crowd together in your 'Thousand and One Nights.' Bah!—Stephen, boy; light my pipe."

"And what is your history, Father Nonesuch?" demanded "the youngster," while two-armed Stephen, a gray old "boy" of seventy, filled and lighted the old veteran's pipe.

"My history?" cried old Nonesuch, struggling to his feet,—or rather to his foot,—and removing his hat, "it is, my son, that of the Emperor Napoleon!"

And at the word, each old soldier sprang also to his feet, and removed his hat silently and in reverence.

"Why, youngster!" old Father Nonesuch continued, dropping again to the bench, "if one wished to relate about my emperor a thousand and one stories a thousand and one nights; to see even a thousand and one days increased by a thousand and one battles, adding to that a thousand and one victories, one would have a thousand and a million million things—fine, glorious, delightful, to hear. For, remember, comrades," and the old man well-nigh exploded with his mathematical calculation, and the grandeur of his own recollections, "remember you this: I never left the great Napoleon!"

"Ah, yes," another aged veteran chimed in; "ah, yes; he was a great man."

Old Nonesuch clapped his hand to his ear.

"Pardon me, comrade the Corsican," he said, with the air of one who had not heard aright; "excuse my question, but would you kindly tell me whom you call a great man?"

"Whom, old deaf ears? Why, the Emperor Napoleon, of course," replied the Corsican.

Old Nonesuch burst out laughing, and pounded the pavement with his heavy cane.

"To call the emperor a man!" he exclaimed; "and what, then, will you call me?"

"You? why, what should we?" said the Corsican veteran; "old Father Nonesuch, old 'Not Entire,' otherwise, Corporal Francis Haut of Brienne."

"Ah, bah!" cried the persistent veteran; "I do not mean my name, stupid! I mean my quality, my—my title, my—well—my sex,—indeed, what am I?" "Well, what is left of you, I suppose," laughed the Corsican, "we might call a man."

"A man! there you have it exactly!" cried old Nonesuch. "I am a man; and so are you, Corsican, and you, Stephen, and you,—almost so,—youngster. But my emperor—the Emperor Napoleon! was he a man? Away with you! It was the English who invented that story; they did not know what he was capable of, those English! The emperor a man? Bah!"

"What was he, then? A woman?" queried the Corsican.

"Ah, stupid one! where are your wits?" cried old Nonesuch, shaking pipe and cane excitedly. "Are you, then, as dull as those English? Why, the emperor was—the emperor! It is we, his soldiers, who were men."

The Corsican veteran shook his head musingly.

"It may be so; it may be so, good Nonesuch. I do not say no to you," he said. "Ah, my dear emperor! I have seen him often. I knew him when he was small; I knew him when he was grown. I saw him born; I saw him die"—"Halt there!" cried old Nonesuch; "let me stop you once more, good comrade Corsican. Do not make these other 'Not Entires' swallow such impossible and indigestible things. The emperor was never born; the emperor never died; the emperor has always been; the emperor always will be. To prove it," he added quickly, holding up his cane, as he saw that the Corsican was about to protest at this surprising statement, "to prove it, let me tell you. He fought at Constantine; he fought at St. Jean d'Ulloa; he fought at Sebastopol, and was conqueror."

"Come, come, Father Nonesuch!" broke in "the youngster," and others of that group of veterans, "you are surely wandering. It was not the Emperor Napoleon who fought at those places. That was long after he was dead. It was the son of Louis Philippe, the Duke of Nemours, who fought at Constantine; it was the Prince of Joinville who led at Ulloa; and, at Sebastopol, the"—

009n.jpg (102K)[Illustration: "Pif! paf! pouf! That is the way I read"—Napoleon at the Battle of Jena.(From the Painting by Horace Vernet.)][Click on the image to enlarge it]

[Illustration: "Pif! paf! pouf! That is the way I read"—Napoleon at the Battle of Jena.(From the Painting by Horace Vernet.)][Click on the image to enlarge it]

"Bah!" broke in the old veteran. "You are all owls, you! What if they did? I will not deny either the Duke of Nemours nor the Prince of Joinville, nor Louis Philippe himself. But what then? You need not deny, you youngster, nor you, the other shouters, that when the cannons boom, when the battles rage, when, above all, one is conqueror for France, there is something of my emperor in that. Could they have conquered except for him? Ten thousand bullets! I say. He is everywhere."

"But, see here, Father Nonesuch," protested the Corsican, "you must not deny to me the emperor's birth; for I know, I know all about it. Was not my mother, Saveria, Madame Letitia's servant? Was she not, too, nurse to the little Napoleon? She was, my faith! And she has told me a hundred times all about him. I know of what I speak. Our emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, was born on the fifteenth of August, 1769, and when he was a baby, the cradle not being at hand, he was laid upon a rug in Madame Letitia's room. And on that rug was a fine representation of Mars, the god of war. And because his bed on that rug was on the very spot which represented Mars, that, old Nonesuch, is why our emperor was ever valiant in war. What say you to that?"

"Oh, very well, very well," said old Nonesuch, as if he made a great concession; "if you say so from your own knowledge, if you insist that he was born, let it go so. I admit that he was born. But as to his being dead, eh? Will you insist on that too?"

"And why not?" replied the Corsican, still harping on his personal knowledge of things in Ajaccio. "I knew the Bonapartes well, I tell you. There was the father, Papa Charles, a fine, noble-looking man; and their uncle, the canon—ah! he was a good man. He was short and fat and bald, with little eyes, but with a look like an eagle. And the children! how often I have seen them, though they were older than I—Joseph and Lucien, and little Louis, and Eliza and Pauline and Caroline. Yes; I saw them often. And Napoleon too. They say he never played much. But you knew him at Brienne school, old Nonesuch."

"Yes," nodded the old veteran; "for there my father was the porter."

"He was ever grave and stern, was Napoleon;—not wicked, though"—"No, no; never wicked," broke in old Nonesuch. "I remember his snow-ball fight."

"A fight with snow-balls!" exclaimed the youngster. "Yes; with snow-balls, youngster," replied old None-such.

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"Did you never hear of it? But you are too young. Only the Corsican and I can remember that;" and the old man nodded to the Corsican with the superiority of old age over these "babies," as he called the younger veterans. "Let me see," said Nonesuch, crossing his wooden leg over his leg of flesh; "I was the porter's boy at Brienne school. I was there to blacken my shoes—not mine, you understand, but those of the scholars. There was much snow that winter. The scholars could not play in the courts nor out-of-doors. They were forced to walk in the halls. That wearied them, but it rejoiced me. Why? Because I had but few shoes to blacken. They could not get them dirty while they remained indoors. But, look you! one day at recess I saw the scholars all out-of-doors,—all out in the snow. 'Alas! alas! my poor shoes,' said I. It made me sad. I hid behind the greenhouse doors, to see the meaning of this disorder. Then I heard a sudden shout. 'Brooms, brooms! shovels, shovels!' they cried. They rushed into the greenhouse: they took whatever they could find; and one boy, who saw me standing idle, pushed me toward the door, crying, 'Here, lazy-bones! take a shovel, take a broom! Get to work, and help us!'—'Help you do what?' said I. 'To make the fort and roll snow-balls,' he replied. 'Not I; it is too cold,' I answered. Then the boys laughed at me. My faith! to-day I think they were right. Then they tried to push me out-of-doors, I resisted; I would not go. Suddenly appeared one whom I did not know. He said nothing. He simply looked at me. He signed to me to take a broom—to march into the garden—to set to work. And I obeyed. I dared not resist. I did whatever he told me; and, my faith! so, too, did all the boys. 'Is this one a teacher?' I asked one of the scholars. 'He does not look so; he is too small and pale and thin.'—'No,' replied the boy; 'it is Napoleon.'—'And who is Napoleon?' I asked; for at that time I was as ignorant as all of you here. 'Is he our patron? Is he the king? Is he the pope?'—'No; he is Napoleon,' the boy replied again, shrugging his shoulders. I did not ask more. The boy was right. Napoleon was neither boy nor man, patron, king, nor pope; he was Napoleon! You should have seen him while we were working. His hand was pointing continually,—here, there, everywhere,—indicating what he wished to have done; his clear voice was ever explaining or commanding. Then, when we had cut paths in the snow, and had built ramparts, dug trenches, raised fortifications, rolled snow-balls—then the attack began. I had nothing more to do, I looked on. But my heart beat fast; I wished that I might fight also. But I was the porter's son, and did not dare to join in the scholars' play. Every day for a week, while the snow lasted, the war was fought at each recess. Snow-balls flew through the air, striking heads, faces, breasts, backs. The shouting and the tumult gave me great pleasure; but, oh! the shoes I had to blacken! Then I said to myself, 'I wish to be a soldier.' And I kept my word."

CHAPTER NINETEENTHE LITTLE CORPORAL

"But why," asked the Corsican, as old Nonesuch concluded his story, and all the veterans applauded with cane and boot, "why did you not say, 'I wish to be a general,' and keep your word. Others like you have been soldiers of the emperor—and generals, marshals, princes."

"Yes, Corsican," replied old Nonesuch sadly; "what you say is true. But I will tell you what prevented my advancement. I did not know how to read as well as a lot of the schemers who were in my regiment. In fact," old Nonesuch confessed, "I could not write; I could not read at all."

"Why did you not learn, then, father?" asked one of the veterans, who, because he sat up late every night to read the daily paper, was called by his comrades "the scholar."

"I did try to learn, Mr. Scholar," replied old Nonesuch, taking a pinch of snuff from the Corsican's box; "but indeed it was not in the blood, don't you see? Not one of my family could read or write; and then I saw so much trouble over the pens and the books when I was blackening my boots at Brienne school, that then I had no wish to learn. 'It is all vexation,' I said. And when I became a soldier, what do you suppose prevented my learning?"

"Were your brains shot away, old Nonesuch?" queried the scholar sarcastically.

"My brains, say you!" the old man cried indignantly. "And if they had been, Mr. Scholar, I would still have more than you. No; it was an adventure I had after Austerlitz. Ah, what a battle was that! I had the good luck there to have this leg that I have not now, carried away by a cannon-ball"—

"Good luck! says he," broke in the youngster. "And how good luck, Father Nonesuch?"

"Tut, tut! boys are so impatient," said old Nonesuch with a frown. "Yes, youngster, good luck, said I. Well, one day, after I had my timber-toe put on, the emperor, who always had thoughts for those of his soldiers who had been wounded, gave notice that he had certain small places at his disposal which he wished to distribute among us crippled ones, in order that we might rest from war. Then all of us set to wondering, 'What can I do? What shall I ask for? What do I like best to do?' My wish was never to leave my own general. He was General Junot"—

"Ah, yes! I know of him," said the Corsican. "He married a Corsican girl, Laura Permon, a friend of the Bonaparte children."

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