Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1895-04-13

who bears thirteen children is heroine;
but Madame de Buonaparto had now
to 60 into the fields and plant mulberry
trees for living! Martpuf finally pre-
vailed with the authorities to make Jo-
seph Bonaparte also 1--WE will now drop
the Italian form Buonapartc) q military
pensioner. But the fathers death and
Napoleon's protest countervailed the
project. and Joseph was doomed to re-
main cadet OF the Church. For Julien,
who developed a passion for polite stud
les and wished to be a priest, scholar
ship was obtained for the school at Bri-
enre- Such is the perversity of fate. As
to Napoleon, it was agreed that instead
Of going into the navy, as Keralio lad
recommended and as Marb9uf had wish
ed, he should become instead lieuten-
ant in the artillery. After his gradua-
tior, he should be assigned to the Regi-
ment La Fere, stationed at Valence, on
the left bank of the Rhone, three hun
bred miles away as the bird flies-far to
the south.
The final examination at L Ecole Mill
taire was passed Like many other in
cipient military heroes-our own in
cluded-Napoleon did not obtain high
rank in his classes. His papers gave hin
only the forty-second place from the
head Louis Antoine Bourienne, his fu-
ture private secretary, had been far
above him at Brienne. Des Mazis, his
favorite classmate, was now graduated
far below him at l. Ecole Militaire. But
the grade was sufficient; and he was en-
abled with his commission as lieutenant
to choose the artillery as his arm Of the
service.
For two months august to October,
1850 the restraints of red tape held back
Lieutenant Bonaparte from going to his
place. His means gave utterly ont. At
last, late in the fall of 1855, he set out
by conveyance from Paris rs far IS
Lyons. but was then obliged, from sheer
inability to pay his fare. to walk the re-
mainder Of the journey to Valence.
There he arrived, and took his place in
the Regiment La Fere-doubtless SO
called because it had no iron in it!
Great was Napoleon's surprise at the
GERS and men almost everything was
practiced except those exercises which
tended to make them soldiers. They
were gay, dissipated, frivolous. The pay
was insufficient to support them in their
career of pleasure and vice; but they
were nearly all scions Of the nobility
and knew not what it was to be limited
in the means of qualification. Napo-
Icons poverty and ambition alike held
him back for moment from this man
ner Of life; but, strange to say, he pres
emily threw himself into TIE swim, and
during the winter of 17s5-S6 he dissi-
pated like the rest.
Valcnce was small but important
city. Tho young military officers were
welcomed by ambitious families into
| their drawing rooms. For the nonce,
Bonaparte concluded that he must be-
come accomplished that he must be q
social lion and quaff tho bowl of pleas
ure with his fellows. He had social pass
ports from MarbGuf's nephew, who was
now the young Bishop of Autun.
But to q nature such as Napoleon 8
| pleasure, however torrid, could not long
| suffice. The lieutenant presently turned
| upon himself in anger; and a sudden re-
form was the immediate result The
| thoughtful brow and sullen manner re-
| turned. He went back gloomily to his
books; recovered his vantage, and hence
| forth to the end of his life-though
many n time he heard the Sirens sing
| ing on nearby shorcs-he never post
4 poned his ambitions for the delirious
dreams and fleeting hallucinations Of q
dissipated life.
| During his career as q student, Napo-
Icons general reading had been in the
nature Of excursions along the coasts OF
political philosophy. The French man.
ner caught his imagination. He talked
of liberty, of the virtues Of the elder
Romans, of humanity in state OF ma
ture-as revealed by Jean Jacques.
| Now, in the spring of l1S6-recover-
ing himself from the winters revel-he
| turned from the "Contrat Sociale, -
| which he had begun to distrust as a
ground of political life, to the 'Histoire
Philosophique" Of the Able Raynal.
| Here he lest himself in the mysteries
land mists) of that science which is said
to teach BY example.
! The writings of the Able Raynal,
from being q conglomerate in which
several strong Enthusiastically that Ct
Diderot-had great part, were now in
| the ascendant. The French mind caught
them, embraced them, and adored. They
were thought for the time to be the be
all and the end-all of political philoso
ply. Behold Napoleon. whose mind had
already been well stocked with the fas
cinating but Improbable stories of He
rodotus, Diodorus, Strabo, Plutarch,
Xenophon, ct id omne genus,-beholt
him at his candle lighted, deal-board ia
BILE in the barracks of Valence, rising IL
thought somewhat from the particular.
of human story to the general laws Of
conduct. Be il remembered, however
that at that epoch the human mind hat
not yet gained the first glimpse Of thai
universal Conference and consistency Of
all things which constitutes the bottom
principle of the New History. As for til,
unfledged Jacobinism in him, that wa
sufficiently inflamed with knowledg,