The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Vol. 1-4). William Milligan Sloane
wrought a marvelous change in the boy. Napoleon's teacher at Autun, the Abbé Chardon, described his pupil as having brought with him a sober, thoughtful character. He played with no one, and took his walks alone. In all respects he excelled his brother Joseph. The boys of Autun, says the same authority, on one occasion brought the sweeping charge of cowardice against all inhabitants of Corsica, in order to exasperate him. "If they [the French] had been but four to one," was the calm, phlegmatic answer of the ten-year-old boy, "they would never have taken Corsica; but when they were ten to one. … " "But you had a fine general—Paoli," interrupted the narrator. "Yes, sir," was the reply, uttered with an air of discontent, and in the very embodiment of ambition; "I should much like to emulate him." The description of the untamed faun as he then appeared is not flattering: his complexion sallow, his hair stiff, his figure slight, his expression lusterless, his manner insignificant. Moreover, his behavior was sullen, and at first, of course, he spoke broken French with an Italian accent. Open-mouthed and with sparkling eyes, however, he listened attentively to the first rehearsal of his task; repetition he heartily disliked, and when rebuked for inattention he coldly replied: "Sir, I know that already." On April twenty-first, 1779, Napoleon, according to the evidence of his personal memorandum, left Autun, having been admitted to Brienne, and it was to Marbeuf that in later life he correctly attributed his appointment. After spending three weeks with a school friend, the little fellow entered upon his duties about the middle of May.
On New Year's day, 1779, the Buonapartes had arrived at Autun, and for nearly four months the young Napoleone had been trained in the use of French. He learned to speak fluently, though not correctly, and wrote short themes in a way to satisfy his teacher. Prodigy as he was later declared to have been, his real progress was slow, the difficulties of that elegant and polished tongue having scarcely been reached; so that it was with a most imperfect knowledge of their language, and a sadly defective pronunciation, that he made his appearance among his future schoolmates. Having, we may suppose, been assigned to the first vacancy that occurred in any of the royal colleges, his first destination had been Tiron, the roughest and most remote of the twelve. But as fortune would have it, a change was somehow made to Brienne. That establishment was rude enough. The instructors were Minim priests, and the life was as severe as it could be made with such a clientage under half-educated and inexperienced monks. In spite of all efforts to the contrary, however, the place had an air of elegance; there was a certain school-boy display proportionate to the means and to the good or bad breeding of the young nobles, also a very keen discrimination among themselves as to rank, social quality, and relative importance. Those familiar with the ruthlessness of boys in their treatment of one another can easily conceive what was the reception of the newcomer, whose nobility was unknown and unrecognized in France, and whose means were of the scantiest.
During his son's preparatory studies the father had been busy at Versailles with further supplications—among them one for a supplement from the royal purse to his scanty pay as delegate, and another for the speedy settlement of his now notorious claim. The former of the two was granted not merely to M. de Buonaparte, but to his two colleagues, in view of the "excellent behavior"—otherwise subserviency—of the Corsican delegation at Versailles. When, in addition, the certificate of Napoleon's appointment finally arrived, and the father set out to place his son at school, with a barely proper outfit, he had no difficulty in securing sufficient money to meet his immediate and pressing necessities.
CHAPTER IV.
Napoleon's School-days[2].
Military Schools in France—Napoleon's Initiation into the Life of Brienne—Regulations of the School—The Course of Study—Napoleon's Powerful Friends—His Reading and Other Avocations—His Comrades—His Studies—His Precocity—His Conduct and Scholarship—The Change in His Life Plan—His Influence in His Family—His Choice of the Artillery Service.
1779–84.
It was an old charge that the sons of poor gentlemen destined to be artillery officers were bred like princes. The institution at Brienne, with eleven other similar academies, had been but recently founded as a protest against the luxury which had reigned in the military schools at Paris and La Flèche. Both these had been closed for a time because they could not be reformed; the latter was, however, one of the twelve from the first, and that at Paris was afterward reopened as a finishing-school. The monasteries of various religious orders were chosen as seats of the new colleges, and their owners were put in charge with instructions to secure simplicity of life and manners, the formation of character, and other desirable benefits, each one in its own way in the school or schools intrusted to it. The result so far had been a failure; there were simply not twelve first-rate instructors in each branch to be found in France for the new positions; the instruction was therefore limited and poor, so that in the intellectual stagnation the right standards of conduct declined, while the old notions of hollow courtliness and conventional behavior flourished as never before. In order to enter his boy at Brienne, Charles de Buonaparte presented a certificate signed by the intendant and two neighbors, that he could not educate his sons without help from the King, and was a poor man, having no income except his salary as assessor. This paper was countersigned by Marbeuf as commanding general, and to him the request was formally granted. This being the regular procedure, it is evident that all the young nobles of the twelve schools enjoying the royal bounty were poor and should have had little or no pocket money. Perhaps for this very reason, though the school provided for every expense including pocket money, polished manners and funds obtained surreptitiously from powerful friends indifferent to rules, were the things most needed to secure kind treatment for an entering boy. These were exactly what the young gentleman scholar from Corsica did not possess. The ignorant and unworldly Minim fathers could neither foresee nor, if they had foreseen, alleviate the miseries incident to his arrival under such conditions.
At Autun Napoleon had at least enjoyed the sympathetic society of his mild and emotional brother, whose easy-going nature could smooth many a rough place. He was now entirely without companionship, resenting from the outset both the ill-natured attacks and the playful personal allusions through which boys so often begin, and with time knit ever more firmly, their inexplicable friendships. To the taunts about Corsica which began immediately he answered coldly, "I hope one day to be in a position to give Corsica her liberty." Entering on a certain occasion a room in which unknown to him there hung a portrait of the hated Choiseul, he started back as he caught sight of it and burst into bitter revilings; for this he was compelled to undergo chastisement.
Brienne was a nursery for the qualities first developed at Autun. The building was a gloomy and massive structure of the early eighteenth century, which stood on a commanding site at the entrance of the town, flanked by a later addition somewhat more commodious. The dormitory consisted of two long rows of cells opening on a double corridor, about a hundred and forty in all: each of these chambers was six feet square, and contained a folding bed, a pitcher and a basin. The pupil was locked in at bed-time, his only means of communication being a bell to arouse the guard who slept in the hall. Larger rooms were provided for his toilet; and he studied where he recited, in still another suite. There was a common refectory in which four simple meals a day were served: for breakfast and luncheon, bread and water, with fruit either fresh or stewed; for dinner, soup with the soup-meat, a side-dish and dessert; for supper, a joint with salad or dessert. With the last two was served a mild mixture of wine and water, known in school slang as "abundance." The outfit of clothing comprised underwear for two changes a week, a uniform consisting of a blue cloth coat, faced and trimmed with red, a waistcoat of the same with white revers, and serge breeches either blue or black. The overcoat was of the same material as the uniform, with the same trimming but with white lining. The studies comprised Latin, mathematics, the French language and literature, English, German, geography, drawing, fencing, music, vocal as well as instrumental, and dancing.
In the Museum of Versailles.
Marie-Laetitia Ramolino Bonaparte
"Madame Mère"—mother