The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-03-10
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
The Incipient Hero Completes His Military
Studies.
lieutenant of Artillery COmpels to Journey IN His
Regiment on Foot-Socia Gaetes Barracks-Death
of His Father-First Command o Soldiers
in the

9b4N AAdEh AlQpdfu.
as Lieutenant to choose the artillery as
MS arm of the service.
For two months august to October
l4s5.) the restraints OF red tame held hack
Lieut. Bonaparte from going to his place
MS means gave utterly out At last. late
IN the fall of l7S5. he set out by convey
ahce from Paris as far as Lyons. but
was then Obliged, from sheer inability 10
pay MS iare. to walk the remainder of
the Journey to Valence. There he arrived.
ana TOOK his place in the Regiment La
fefe-doubtless so called because il had
no iron in it,
Great was Napoleon's surprise al the
character OF the discipline BY the officers
anu men almost everything was Practised
except those exercises which tended to
make them soldiers. They were CAV. dis
slpated, frivolous. The pay was insult
cient TO support them in their career of
pleasure and vice; but they were nearly
al scions of the nobility and knew not
what II was TO be limited in the means of
gfauhcatlon. NapOleon's poverty and am
oltion alike held him back for a moment
from this manner of life; but strange to
say, he presently threw himself into the
swim, and during the winter of 1886 he
ulsslpated like the rest. There seemed to
be nothing to do about the barracks of
Nalence except to join the rout or else to
become again a solitary student: and for
that there was not the slightest encour-
agement
Valence was small but important city.
The young military officers were v, slcomed
by ambitious families into their drawing
rooms. For the nonce, Bonaparte con-
cluded that he must become accomplished
that he must be social lion and quaff
the bowl of pleasure with his fellows. He
had social passports from Marboeufs
nephew, who was now the young Bishop
uot fbo
TO the home of important personages such
as the Able Saint-Ruff. He knew what
wine was-and fashionable women. For
him the doors of the ball room swung omen
and his slight form in military regalia
might be seen waltzing with luxurious
womanhood much taller than himself!
caesar. as late as his twenty-eighth year
just before he was elected military tribune
took such a plunge into the rivers of in
diligence.
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 sulen 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 the sirens singing on
nearby shores-he never postponed his
ambitions for the delrous dreams and
ieeting hallucinations of a dissipated life
During his career as a student, Napo-
Icons general reading had been in the ma
ture of excursions along the coasts of po-
litical philosophy. The French manner
caught his imagination. He talked of lib
erty of the virtues of the elder Romans
of humanity in a state of nature-as re-
vealed by Jean Jacques. Now. in the
spring of 1786-recovering himself from
ffa. rFT.eas
"Contrat Cociale," which he had begun to
distrust as a ground of political life, to
the 'Histoire Philosophique" of the Able
Raynal. Here he lost himself in the mys-
teres land mists) of that science which Is
said to teach by example.
The writings of the Able Raynal. from
being a conglomerate in which several
strong Enthusiastically that of Diderot-
had great part were now in the ascend
ant. The French mind caught them
embraced them, and adored. They were
thought for the time to be the be-all and
the end of all political philosophy Behold
Napoleon, whose mind had already been
well stocked with the fascinating but I'M
profitable stories of Herodotus Diodorus
Strabo, Plutarch XeDophon, ct id omne
genus-behold him at his candle lighted
deal-board table in the barracks of Va
lence, rising in thought somewhat from
the particulars of human story to the gen.
eral 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 consisten-
cy of all things which constitute the bot
tom principle of the new history. AS for
the unfedged Jacobinism in him, that
was sufficiently inflamed with the knowl-
edge that five years previously this same
Historic Philosophique" had been burn
ed at the stake-so to speak-in Paris, and
its author driven into exile.
Meanwhile, in August of 1887. while
the members of our constitution conven-
ton were hard at work in Philadelphia
building their ship of state, an insurrec-
ton against the French government 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 thfther Napoleon Bonaparte,
lieutenant of artillery. had his first com
mand of soldiers in the field.
John Clark Ridpath