The herald., 1895-02-11
YOUNG NAPOLEON DESpONDENT
His Efforts at Finding work Wer,
Unsuccessful.


Unsuccessful.
Early in August, 1887, a little rebel
lion, known as the 1.-TWO Cent Revolt"
broke out in Lyons over an attempt to
reassert an ancient feudal right concern
I ing the gale of wine which had long
5eon in allegiance. The neighboring gar
risons were ordered to furnish their re-
spective quotas for its suppression.
Bonaparte's company was sent among
the others, but the disturbance was al
ready quelled when he arrived, and the
month he spent at Lyons was 80 agree.
able that, as he wrote his uncle Fesch,
he left the city with regret ito follow
his destiny" His regiment had been
ordered northward to Douay, in Elan
ders, and there he rejoined it about the
middle of October.
The short time he spent under the in
clement skies of that frontier fortress
was dreary one Bad news came from
home. Joseph had some time before
turned his eyes toward Tuscany for
possible career. In order to test his
chances of success at court, he had made
application for an empty decoration.
The answer to his request had been
gracious permission to prove his Tuscan
nationality, which was Of course equiv
alent to repulse. Utterly without sue
cess in finding occupation in Corsica
and hopeless as to France, he was now
about to make a final desperate effort
and, decorated or not. to go in person to
Nd 70 low, of
kind which offered. Lucien, the arch
deacon, was seriously i'll, and General
Marbeuf, the last influential friend of
the family, was dead. Louis had been
promised scholarship in one of the
royal artillery schools. Deprived of his
patron, he would probably lose the ap-
pointment.
Finally the pecuniary affairs Of Nine.
de Bonaparte were again entangled and
now appeared hopeless. She had for
some time received q state bounty for
planting mulberry trees, as France was
introducing silk culture into the island.
The inspectors had condemned the years
work and were Withholding the allow
ance. Her letter put an end for time
to all study, historical or political. Ma
poleon Immediately applied, as his
mother requested, for leave of absence,
that he might instantly set out to her
relief. His request was refused. He
could obtain no leave until January.
Despondent and anxious he moped,
grew miserable and contracted slight
malarial fever, which for the next six
or seven years never entirely relaxed
its hold on him. The pages of his jour-
nal for the ensuing weeks show how
dispirited he was, and contain, among
other things, long, wild, pessimistio
rhapsody, in which there is talk of sui
eide. Tho plant is of the degeneracy
among men, of the destruction of prim-
tive simplicity in Corsica by the French
occupation, of his own isolation and Of
his yearning to see his friends once
more. Life is no longer worth while
His country gone, apatriot has naught to
live for, specially when he has no pleas
ure and all is pain, when the charac-
ter Of those about him is to his own as
moonlight to sunlight. If there were
but single life in his way, he would
bury the avenging blade of his country
and her violated laws in the bosom of
the tyrant. Some Of his complaining
was even less coherent than this. 1t is
absurd to take the morbid outpouring
seriously, except in SO far as it goes to
prove that its writer was a victim of
the sentimental egoism into which the |
studies of the eighteenth
century had degenerated and to sug-
gest that possibly if he had not been
Napoleon he might havo been Wer-
ther Professor Sloane's Life of Napo.
leon" in Century.