were thus provided for. At the time the family was in straitened circumstances, owing to certain lawsuits which Carlo had to sustain about a disputed inheritance, and also concerning a marshy tract of land called "Le Saline," which, under the encouragement of the local administration, he had undertaken to drain and bring into cultiva

tion.

The infant Napoleon was nursed by a Corsican paesana, or countrywoman, whose memory he cherished, and who, with her children and grandchildren was remembered in his last will.* This good woman paid him a visit at the palace of the Tuileries, when he was at the height of his splendour, and returned to Corsica loaded with his gifts. Napoleon first left Corsica for the Military School at Brienne in 1778, when he was about nine years old. There was nothing very striking in his boyhood; he has said himself that he was only a stubborn and inquisitive child. He was essentially Italian. At Brienne, where he spent not quite six years, he learned to speak French, and became distinguished by his aptitude for mathematics, but made little progress in Latin and general literature. Pichegru was for a time his monitor in the mathematical class. Bourrienne (afterwards his private secretary), who was his school companion and his only friend at Brienne, says that at this time Napoleon was noticeable chiefly for his Italian complexion, the keenness of his eye, and a certain abrupt and bitter tone in his conversation. He was poor and proud. His more mercurial and more affluent schoolfellows looked upon him as a needy foreigner, and he keenly felt their jibes and sneers. Countries may be annexed and politically incorporated, but the character, language, and habits of a people are not to be changed quite so soon. In France a Corsican is still a foreigner, and in that Italian island a Frenchman is still more alien. One day, in a pet, young Napoleon told Bourrienne that he did not like his countrymen, and that he would live to do them mischief. Bourrienne states that he studied history assiduously, especially classical history. This he must have done in French translations and epitomes, without undergoing the sobering process of construing "Biographie Universelle."

* Montholon, "Memoires," &c.

Latin and interpreting Greek. It has been conjectured that he might have derived from Greek and Roman history those notions of glory and conquest which afterwards urged him on. There is a report made to his Majesty Louis XVI. by M. de Keralis, Inspector-General of the Military Schools of France in 1783, in which young Bonaparte was described as of excellent constitution, obedient, polite and grateful, and very regular in his conduct. "Very forward in the mathematical studies, tolerably well acquainted with history and geography, has made but little progress in Latin, belles lettres, and other accomplishments, bears a good character, would make a good sea officer, deserves to be transferred to the Military School at Paris." In consequence of this report he was transferred to Paris

in October, 1783, to continue his studies until he should attain the age for entering the army as an officer of the French monarch.

The pecuniary difficulties of his father continued. The establishment of the Paris school, and the manner of living of the pupils, were upon a footing of expensive indulgence which ill agreed with young Bonaparte's finances, and which shocked his notions of regularity and economy. In a very remarkable letter addressed to Father Berton, his late superior at Brienne, he exposed such a system of education, saying truly that it was a bad preparation for the hardships attendant upon the military profession. Bourrienne has given a copy of this letter. In the regulations which he afterwards drew up for his own military school of Fontainebleau, Napoleon enforced the principles which he had thus early expressed. Both the letter and the regulations merit the attention of those who would now remodel our own military schools at Woolwich and Sandhurst.

Young reformers are very seldom popular among those with whom they are associated. Napoleon's spirit of observation, criticism, and censure, and his active, restless disposition, appear to have attracted the attention of his superiors at the Paris school, who hastened the period of his examination, as if anxious to get rid of a troublesome guest. While there he manifested a strong taste for military evolutions and combinations. One of his teachers said, "He is Corsican by birth and disposition. He will become a great man if circumstances favour him." Having passed his examination by the celebrated Laplace in a satisfactory manner, he was appointed second lieutenant in the Artillery Regiment de la Fêre, and joined his regiment at Valence, a town pleasantly situated on the banks of the Rhone, between Lyons and Avignon. His father Carlo Bonaparte had just died at Montpelier, in the south of France, of an ulcer in the stomach, in the thirty-ninth year of his age, leaving a family of five sons, Joseph, Napoleon, Lucien, Louis, and Jerome ; and three daughters, Marianne (afterwards Elise Baciocchi), Annunziata (afterwards Pauline Borghese), and Carletta (afterwards Caroline Murat).

• A. Vieusseux.