Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1895-04-27

NAPOLEON BY WHESSEL.
then lieutenant-colonel in the alleged
National Guards, no had undertaken to
get possession OF the citadel of Ajaccio,
and had failed. His leadership, like q
rod of glass, broke to fragments in his
hands. He and the whole Bonaparte
family were discountenanced, and he
was glad to get away-being careful to
carry with him military record which
he himself had prepared and the colonel
of the Second Battalion had signed,
showing his patriotic military services
and his rank rs an officer. With this he
would regain his lost position in the
French army.
At Valence, there was still much in
Napoleon's favor. The royal army was
literally going to pieces. The organizn-
ton of the National Guard in various
parts of the kingdom had drawn off
many of the officers and infected many
more with the disease Of patriotism.
The colonel Of the Fourth Regiment
was an old royalist who had gladly cut
off tho Jacobin Bonaparte from his COM
mand. 1t was useless for the latter to
return to Valence, hoping to be rein
stated at such a court. He therefore
made all speed for Paris, where he
would have o hearing before the minis
ter Of war.
By the summer of 1899 the roaring
winds of revolution were shaking not
only the pinnacles, but the very founda-
tions, of French civilization. The old
order was already in ruins. Paris was
in an uproar. The King and court had
been obliged in the preceding autumn
to leave Versailles and come, in the
most remarkable procession in history,
to Paris. The starving populace had
gone out to the royal palace. invaded it,
hooted around it, drawn forth the King
and Queen and their ill fated scion, and
had hurried them off into the city, dane
ing about them en- route and shouting
in wild POPULARITY that now they had
the baker and the bakeress and the bak-
er's little boy! All this wreck of royal
ty and nobility heaped itself up in the
Tuileries. cut Of which the ancient
monarchy Of the Bourbons looked with
wan face ut tho weltering world.
1t was to this Paris that Napoleon
came, with q billet of dismissal and pc
tition for reinstatement. One war min
lister after another, to the number of
six, had now filled the important Office
before which Bonaparte stood q petit
toner for rehearing. The new minister
was Nationalist and favorably dispos.
ed towards the Corsican adventurer; for
the latter came with haggard revolu-
tionary face and long hair hanging to
his shoulders. There was delay in the
Office; and Bonaparte, with his former
schoolfellow and future secretary, Bour-
rienne, was well nigh starving in the
streets.
To add to his distress, the Royal
School for Girls at Saint Cyr, under the
immediate patronage Of Marie Antoi-
nette. went to pieces. like other exist
ing things; and Elise Bonaparte was
turned adrift with no friend in France
except her sullen brother To the credit
of the latter, he chung to his sister, and
presently took advantage of her presence
to get another ledue Of absence, ''in or
der to conduct her home.' But he did
not do so until his cause in the war of
fee had, ON the 30th Of August been
decided in his favor He was exoner-
ated. restored to rank. promoted to a
captaincy, and to crown all the new COM
mission was dated back to the preceding
February.
This was q great victory for the man
Of destiny. He was Captain Bonaparte.
Taking Elise by the hand, he sped away
| to Lyons and Valence-where he paused
TO be seen in his new regimentals-and
then to Marseilles and Corsica His re-
turn brought together at Ajaccio all the
members of the family of Bonaparte.
He left behind in Paris the Countess
Josephine dc Beauharnais, aged twenty
! nine. And yorder at Vienna, in her
Hapsburg cradle. nine months old, lies
the girl-babe Maria Louise. These two