The Evening dispatch. [volume] (Provo, City, Utah) 1891-1895, 1895-04-17
YOUNG NAPOLEON DEsPoNDENr.
Bad News From His Homo Made the Ar
tilleryman Talk of Suicide.

Bad News From His Homo Made the ar.
tilleryman Talk of Suicide.
Early in August, 1887, little rebel
lion, known as the "Two Cent Revolt,
broke out in Lyons over an attempt to
reassert an ancient feudal right concern.
ing the sale of wine which had long
been in allegiance. The neighboring gar.
Efsons 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 so agree
able that, as ne wrote his uncle Fesch.
he left the city with regret ''to follow
his destiny" His regiment had been
ordered northward to Douay, in Flan-
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 a 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 a
gracious permission to prove his Tuscan
nationality, which was of course equiv
alent to a repulse. Utterly without sue.
cess in finding occupation in Corsica
and hopeless as tc France, he was now
about to make a final desperate effort
and, decorated OF not, to go in person to
Florence and to seek employment of any
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 a 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
come time received a 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 a 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 a 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, a long, wild, pessimistic
in which there is talk of sui
eide. The plant is of the degeneraoy
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 onte
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 ohnfao-
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 Geuntry
and her violated laws in the bosorA Of |
the tyrant. Some of his com plajning |
was even less coherent than this. 1t is |
absurd to take the morbid oafpouring
except in SO far AZ, it goes to
prove that its writer was Is victim Of
the sentimental egoism into which the
studies of tie eighteenth
century had degenerated and to sug-
gest that possibly if he had not been
Napoleon he might have been Wer.
SIoane's life of Napo.
leon" in Century.