The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1895-03-09

family, was now about to die. Napoleon
sought to alleviate the distresses of the
household; hut his resources were limited,
and his ambitions were constantly con-
tending with the purposes born Of natural
affection.
Home again after an absence of nearly
nine years, the young officer busted him
self more with things great than things
little. He was more concerned with the
political condition of the world than with
the daily needs of his mothers house. He
dwelt more on the state of Corsica than
on the emptiness of Madame ~Bonaparte's
cuisine-more on the woes of Ajaccio
than on those of his brothers and sisters
stomachs. He conceived himself to be the
patriot par excellence of his age, and spent
more time in delivering socialistic mono
logues than in contriving the means to
rescue the family from impending ruin.
1t was at this juncture that Napoleon
began to concern himself especially about
the institutions and history of England.
Along with his Necker he studied Smiths
Wealth of Nations" then only twelve
years from the press. The Elizabethan age
hot indeed for the intellectual glory that
was in it, but for its political i%ntrigues-
impressed him greatly; and he undertook
to do into fiction the features of that era
in a novel entitled the Count of Essex"
Then he flew back to his History of Cor
sica, " revised the parts which he had sent
to the Able Raynal, and pressed on with
the rest. Alongside of Noltaire, he would
set up a rival production of his own, called
the Masked Prophet"-a marvellous and
impossible invention out of Persial Litera-
ture was thus mixed with affairs; fiction
Ho,risItp1 nt tbH ,,nnpnr ,,ou1s uyhich Mo-
dame Bonaparte was able to set for her
family; anathemas of Joseph's unprofita-
BILE winc-shop were illuminated with para
graphs about the glories of rebellion; and
the mulberry orchard back of Aiaccio was
cursed in the middle of an apostrophic per
Grafton about the regeneration of man
kind!
Bonapartc's leave of absence-so eagerly
sought-soon became as intolerable to him
as to the rest. His paper gave him privilege
to be away from his command for six
months; but before the end of the fourth
mountaineering casuistical reasons
he impatiently left Corsica to rejoin his
company. During his stay in the island,
he had accomplished something-some-
thing hat would have been much in any
other. He had induced the French intend
ant to agree to allow his mothers claim.
He had pushed forward the inert Joseph
to try the law as a profession, and had
seen him installed at Bastia. He had
urged upon his equity uncle the necessity
of patriotism! He had drawn up and sub
mitted a system of coast defenses for the
principal ports of the island. He had pre-
pared a scheme for the creation of an in
sular army. lie had studied and written
necessarily at a furious speed, completing
his Oriental novel and his History of Cor
sica. The latter was cast in the epistolary
form, and was dedicated to Monseigncur
Marbuuf, now promoted to the see Of Sens.
Meanwhile the Regiment La Fero had
been ordered from Douai, to Auxonne, in
Cote dor, 1S2 miles from Paris. Thither
Napoleon repaired, to rcjoin his command,
in the last week of May, 1888. He took
with him the manuscript of his History of
Corsica, " seeking il publisher, but finding
nome, either at Nalence or Lyons or Aux
onne or Paris or anywhere else in this
mundane sphere forever. In that same
week, Alexander Hamilton wrote his last
paper for The Federalist. One month pre-
viously, from the presses of Strahan and
Cadet, in the Strand, was issued, by the
author, on his fifty-first birthday, the
greatest history ever composed by man
1t would be impossible to define the
mental condition of Napoleon at this stage
of his development. Politically for
though asoldier he was always a politician
he went halting between two forces.
The one tendency drew him powerfully to-
wards the local independence of his native
island. h involved hatred of the CON
quest and annexation of Corsica to France.
1t also involved hatred of France itself;
~ tha L,.t1I -l e A. N.-I
monarchy in particular. But the other
tendency drew Franceward with equal
stress. 1t was from tho powerful fact Of
France that all benefits had thus far
flowed to the family of B%onaparte. BY
France he had himself been educated. Be
sides, Corsica, even as an independent
state, was a limited field of action. France
is great. France offers world wide dis
tinction. Our commission as Lieutenant
of artillery is a French commission, and
our very sword is a French blade.
But our History of Corsica" is a patri-
otto and insurrectionary document. 1t is
inconsistent with our allegiance, and hurt
full to what France MAJ promise hereafter.
Therefore we would better shuttle, and re-
write our book. We will put it into the
mouth of IA Corsican patriot of the old
Genoese faction, to which the family of
our mother Ramolino once belonged. In
Its present form we make a copy of it, and
send it to the great Paoli in London; but
he returns it to us, putting US off with
the counsel that we are as yet immature,
"too young for writing history" and add
ing words to the effect that our book is
not sufficiently original. In truth, our
mind is n vortex, a maelstrom of conflict
ing tides. Here at Auxonne, during our
stay of eighteen months, we will sit down
again, Unsuitable, in solitary gloom, and
devour the greatest things thought and
written by men whom we shall one day
surpass and eclipse!
JOHN CLARK RIDPATR.
A Phase of Fatalism.