Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1895-02-25
NAPoLEoN'S DEsPoNDENcY.
Bad News from His Home Made Him
Talk of Suicide.

NNT SICOiN = OCSFONDGNCI.
Bad News from His Home Made Him
Talk OF Suicide.
The agreeable and StudiouS life at
Valence was soon ended, writes Prof.
Sloane in Century. EARLY in August,
1887, little rebellion, known as the
'"Two-cent Revolt" broke out in Lyons
over an attempt to rcasscrt an ancient
feudal right concerning the sale of wine
which had long been in abcyance. The
neighboring garrisons were ordered to
furnish their respective quotas for its
suppression. Bonapartc's company was
sent among others, but the disturbance
was already quelled when he arrived,
and the month he spent at Lyons was
SO agreeable 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
Flanders, and there he rejoined it about
the middle of October.
The short time he spent under the in
element skies of that frontier fortress
was drcary one. Bad news came from
, home. Joseph had some time before
turned his eyes towards Tuscany for q
possible career. In order to test his
chances of success at court, he had
made application for an empty decora-
tion. The answer to his request had
been gracious permission to prove his
Tuscan nationality, which was, of
course, equivalent to 4 rcpulse. Utterly
without success in finding occupation
in Corsica, an dhopclcss as to France, he
was now about to make final dcsper-
ate effort, and, decorated or not, to go
in person to Florence and to seek en-
ployment of any kind which offered.
Lucien, the archdcacon, was seriously
i'll, and Gen. Marbeuf, the last influcn-
tial friend Of the family, was dead.
, Louis had been promised 4 scholarship
in one of the royal artillery schools; de-
prived of his patron, he would probably
lose the appointment.
Finally, the pccunfary affairs of
Nine. de Buonaparte were again en-
tangled, and now appeared hopeless.
She had for some time received state
bounty for planting mulberry trees, az
France was introducing silk culture
into the island. The inspectors had
condemned the years work, and were
withholding the allowance. Her letter
put an end for time to all study, his
torical or political. Napoleon imme-
diately applied, as his mother request.
ed, for leave of absence, that he might
instantly set out to her relief. His re-
quest was refused. He could obtain NO
leave until January.
DeSpondent and anxious, he moped.
grew miserable, and contracted a slight
ualarial fever, which for the next six
"sCvcn years never entirely relaxed
u. IL on him. The pages of his jour
| t"1 the ensuing weeks show how
Di"if;I nc was, and contain, among
scr tAinS'a, q long. wild, pcssimistic
apScdy. in which there is talk of
';oi;ic. The plaint is of the degen-
~ among men. Of the destruction OF
.-.i:ivc simplicity in Corsica by the
zach occupation, of his own isolation,
i # his ycarning to see his friends
&c more. Life is no longer worth
:aii": his country gone, patriot has
n"u-;f TO live for, specially when he
h"& ..'':,:r' n-71 Ill Is pain-whcn
=, A.......u1vr OF Lnosc about him is to
.r5 own as moonlight to sunlight. If
h2rc were but single life in his way,
;lc would bury the avcnging blade of
;Ii!, country and her violated laws ii
$40 boom of the tyrant. Some OF his
;inpluining was even less coherent
lhan this. it is absurd to take the
morbid outpouring seriously, except in
so far as it goes to prove that its writer
was victim of the sentimental cgoism
into which the psychological studies of
the eighteenth century had degen-
Grated, and to suggest that possibly il
he had not been Napoleon he might
have been Werther.