The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1895-09-13

practiced except those exercises which
tended TO make them soldiers They
were gay, dissipatod, frivolous. The pay
was insufficient to support them in their
career Of pleasure and vice; but thoy
were nearly all scions Of the nobility
and know not what IL was To be limited
in the means Of qualification. Napo.
Icons poverty and ambition alike held
him back for a moment from this man
nor Of life; but, strange to say, he pres
emily threw himself into the swim, and
during the winter Of 17S5-s6 he dissi
pated like the rest
Valence was small but important
city. The 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 quaif the bowl Of pleas
ure with his fellows. He had social pass
ports from Marbpuf's nephew, who was
now the young Bishop of Autun.
But to a nature such as Napoleon's
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 time he heard che Sirens sing
ing on nearby shores-he never post
poned his ambitions for the delirious
| a.ats,.a, ha1l ..f n
dissipated life.
During his career as 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 q state of ma
ture-as revealed by Jean Jacques
Now, in the spring of l7S6-recover-
ing himself from the winters revel--he
turned from the "CoDtrat Sooiale, "
which he had begun to distrust as q
ground of political life, to the "Histoire
Pbilosophique" of the Able Raynal
Here he lost himself in the mysteries
land mists) of that science which is said
to teach by example.
The writings of the Able Raynal,
from being conglomerate in which
several strong Enthusiastically that Of
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 tho fas-
cinating but Improbable stories of He
rodotus, Diodorus, Strabo, Plutarch,
Xenophon, ct id omne genus. behold
him at his candle.lighted, deal-board ia
BILE in the barracks of Valence. rising in
thought somewhat from the particulars
of human story to the general laws OF
conduct. Be it remembered, however,
that at that epoch the human mind had
not yet gained the first glimpse Of that
universal conference and consistency OF
all things which constitutes the bottom
principle Of the New History. As for the
unfedged Jacobinism in him, that was
sufficiently infamed with knowledge
that five years previously this same
"Histoire Philosophique" had beer
burned at the stake-so to speak-in
Paris, and its author driven into exile.
Meanwhile, in August of 1887, while
the members of our Constitutional Con.
vention were hard at work in Philadel-
phia building their ship of state, an in
surrection against the French govern
ment broke out in Lyons, fifty three
miles up the river from Valence; and
the Regiment La Fere was ordered to
put down the revolt. On the march
thither Napoleon Bonaparte, lieutenant
of artillery, had his first command Of
soldiers in the field.
JOHN CLARK RIDPATH.