The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Vol. 1-4). William Milligan Sloane
far as possible, his mother's complicated affairs, he journeyed frequently to Bastia, probably to collect money due for young mulberry-trees which had been sold, possibly to get material for his history. On these visits he met and dined with the artillery officers of the company stationed there. One of them, M. de Roman, a very pronounced royalist, has given in his memoirs a striking portrait of his guest.[16] "His face was not pleasing to me at all, his character still less; and he was so dry and sententious for a youth of his age, a French officer too, that I never for a moment entertained the thought of making him my friend. My knowledge of governments, ancient and modern, was not sufficiently extended to discuss with him his favorite subject of conversation. So when in my turn I gave the dinner, which happened three or four times that year, I retired after the coffee, leaving him to the hands of a captain of ours, far better able than I was to lock arms with such a valiant antagonist. My comrades, like myself, saw nothing in this but absurd pedantry. We even believed that this magisterial tone which he assumed was meaningless until one day when he reasoned so forcibly on the rights of nations in general, his own in particular, Stupete gentes! that we could not recover from our amazement, especially when in speaking of a meeting of their Estates, about calling which there was some deliberation, and which M. de Barrin sought to delay, following in that the blunders of his predecessor, he said: 'that it was very surprising that M. de Barrin thought to prevent them from deliberating about their interests,' adding in a threatening tone, 'M. de Barrin does not know the Corsicans; he will see what they can do.' This expression gave the measure of his character. One of our comrades replied: 'Would you draw your sword against the King's representative?' He made no answer. We separated coldly and that was the last time this former comrade did me the honor to dine with me." Making all allowance, this incident exhibits the feeling and purpose of Napoleon. During these days he also completed a plan for the defense of St. Florent, of La Mortilla, and of the Gulf of Ajaccio; drew up a report on the organization of the Corsican militia; and wrote a paper on the strategic importance of the Madeleine Islands. This was his play; his work was the history of Corsica. It was finished sooner than he had expected; anxious to reap the pecuniary harvest of his labors and resume his duties, he was ready for the printer when he left for France in the latter part of May to secure its publication. Although dedicated in its first form to a powerful patron, Monseigneur Marbeuf, then Bishop of Sens, like many works from the pen of genius it remained at the author's death in manuscript.
The book was of moderate size, and of moderate merit.[17] Its form, repeatedly changed from motives of expediency, was at first that of letters addressed to the Abbé Raynal. Its contents display little research and no scholarship. The style is intended to be popular, and is dramatic rather than narrative. There is exhibited, as everywhere in these early writings, an intense hatred of France, a glowing affection for Corsica and her heroes. A very short account of one chapter will sufficiently characterize the whole work. Having outlined in perhaps the most effective passage the career of Sampiero, and sketched his diplomatic failures at all the European courts except that of Constantinople, where at last he had secured sympathy and was promised aid, the author depicts the patriot's bitterness when recalled by the news of his wife's treachery. Confronting his guilty spouse, deaf to every plea for pity, hardened against the tender caresses of his children, the Corsican hero utters judgment. "Madam," he sternly says, "in the face of crime and disgrace, there is no other resort but death." Vannina at first falls unconscious, but, regaining her senses, she clasps her children to her breast and begs life for their sake. But feeling that the petition is futile, she then recalls the memory of her earlier virtue, and, facing her fate, begs as a last favor that no base executioner shall lay his soiled hands on the wife of Sampiero, but that he himself shall execute the sentence. Vannina's behavior moves her husband, but does not touch his heart. "The pity and tenderness," says Buonaparte, "which she should have awakened found a soul thenceforward closed to the power of sentiment. Vannina died. She died by the hands of Sampiero."
Neither the publishers of Valence, nor those of Dôle, nor those of Auxonne, would accept the work. At Paris one was finally found who was willing to take a half risk. The author, disillusioned but sanguine, was on the point of accepting the proposition, and was occupied with considering ways and means, when his friend the Bishop of Sens was suddenly disgraced. The manuscript was immediately copied and revised, with the result, probably, of making its tone more intensely Corsican; for it was now to be dedicated to Paoli. The literary aspirant must have foreseen the coming crash, and must have felt that the exile was to be again the liberator, and perhaps the master, of his native land. At any rate, he abandoned the idea of immediate publication, possibly in the dawning hope that as Paoli's lieutenant he could make Corsican history better than he could write it. It is this copy which has been preserved; the original was probably destroyed.
The other literary efforts of this feverish time were not as successful even as those in historical writing. The stories are wild and crude; one only, "The Masked Prophet," has any merit or interest whatsoever. Though more finished than the others, its style is also abrupt and full of surprises; the scene and characters are Oriental; the plot is a feeble invention. An ambitious and rebellious Ameer is struck with blindness, and has recourse to a silver mask to deceive his followers. Unsuccessful, he poisons them all, throws their corpses into pits of quicklime, then leaps in himself, to deceive the world and leave no trace of mortality behind. His enemies believe, as he desired, that he and his people have been taken up into heaven. The whole, however, is dimly prescient, and the concluding lines of the fable have been thought by believers in augury to be prophetic. "Incredible instance! How far can the passion for fame go!" Among the papers of this period are also a constitution for the "calotte," a secret society of his regiment organized to keep its members up to the mark of conduct expected from gentlemen and officers, and many political notes. One of these rough drafts is a project for an essay on royal power, intended to treat of its origin and to display its usurpations, and which closes with these words: "There are but few kings who do not deserve to be dethroned."
The various absences of Buonaparte from his regiment up to this time are antagonistic to our modern ideas of military duty. The subsequent ones seem simply inexplicable, even in a service so lax as that of the crumbling Bourbon dynasty. Almost immediately after Joseph's return, on the first of June he sailed for France. He did not reach Auxonne, where the artillery regiment La Fère was now stationed, until early in that month, 1788. He remained there less than a year and a half, and then actually obtained another leave of absence, from September tenth, 1789, to February, 1791, which he fully intended should end in his retirement from the French service.[18] The incidents of this second term of garrison life are not numerous, but from the considerable body of his notes and exercises which dates from the period we know that he suddenly developed great zeal in the study of artillery, theoretical and practical, and that he redoubled his industry in the pursuit of historical and political science. In the former line he worked diligently and became expert. With his instructor Duteil he grew intimate and the friendship was close throughout life. He associated on the best of terms with his old friend des Mazis and began a pleasant acquaintance with Gassendi. So faithful was he to the minutest details of his profession that he received marks of the highest distinction. Not yet twenty and only a second lieutenant, he was appointed, with six officers of higher rank, a member of the regimental commission to study the best disposal of mortars and cannon in firing shells. Either at this time or later (the date is uncertain), he had sole charge of important manœuvers held in honor of the Prince of Condé. These honors he recounted with honest pride in a letter dated August twenty-second to his great-uncle. Among the Fesch papers are considerable fragments of his writing on the theory, practice, and history of artillery. Antiquated as are their contents, they show how patient and thorough was the work of the student, and some of their ideas adapted to new conditions were his permanent possession, as the greatest master of artillery at the height of his fame. In the study of politics he read Plato and examined the constitutions of antiquity, devouring with avidity what literature he could find concerning Venice, Turkey, Tartary, and Arabia. At the same time he carefully read the history of England, and made some accurate observations on the condition of contemporaneous politics in France.
His last disappointment had rendered him more taciturn and misanthropic than ever; it seems clear that he was working to become an expert, not for the benefit of France, but for that of Corsica. Charged with the oversight of some slight works on the fortifications, he displayed such incompetence that he was actually punished