Little Falls weekly transcript. (Little Falls, Morrison Co., Minn.) 1894-19??, 1895-02-22
LET1r1A BoNAPARrE, MOTHER OF NAPoLRol

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LETITIA BONAPARTE, MOTHER OF NAPOLEON.
beast, sketched fat on the sea, shows
many black spots ON the side: they are
mountains. There are veins also, and
| these are swift streams: small circles in q
few places-towns. The area of the broad
side Is 8, 376 square miles. It Is more than
twice as big as Rhode 1sland-slnaller
somewhat than Connecticut And the
population exceeds quarter of million.
OF the towns here marked, we are con.
cerned with only two; Corte and A1accio.
The former is the old home of the Buona-
parties; the latter, the place to which the
family removed just at the time when, by
the birth of man child clad with thun-
der, it was destined. to emerge from me-
dimval obsourities, starlike, Sirius-like,
into the open sky of fame. Otherwise not
much need be said of the island, its en-
placement In the sea, its general aspects
and possibilities.
The genesis of Napoleon touches re-
markable ethnio condition. Nearly all OF
the West ryan races have contributed to
the population of the island in which he
was born. The substratum was perhaps
that old Etruscan life which preceded the
Italicans in Italy. The first foreign colo
nists were Greeks, out of 1onia. These
gained supremacy in the island, but were
overwhelmed at length by the Carthagin-
ians The Roman ascendency came next,
and lasted for seven or eight centuries.
Then followed the Vandals, and after
them the Huns of Attila. Ethnio fnflu-
ences had meanwhile reached a second
time out of Africa. Many Manritanians
came over and settled in Sardinia and
Corsica; and then, in the Dark Ages,
there was Saracenic conquest.
More important than this was tho es-
tablishment of Norman power in the is.
land. The people and the architecture
alike show traces Of all these remote but
potent influences in determining the final
ce-character of the Corsicans who, after
the fifteenth century, became essentially
Italian. The race is thus composite in it's
derivation to as great a degree as any peo-
pie IN the world. Besides the ethnic or.
igin, the environment-the narrow con-
fines of the island, it's mountainous char
acter, its pleasant situation in the pellucid
waters of the Mediterranean, its easy dis
lance from the long bending line of one of
the most famous coasts Of the world-has
tended powerfully, by the reactions of ma
ture on the human animal, to establish
and confirm the small insular race whose
one man was destined to give it conspic-
uous place in human annals.
The Buonapartes were true Corsicans.
The family reaches back obscurely into the
Middle Ages. The name is Italian, and
shows linguistically an origin as remote
as the Renaissance. There were italian
as we'll as Corsican Buonapartes A FAM
ily of this name lived in the Tuscan city
of Sarzana; another perhaps, in Genoa,
and another at Florence. Examples are
found in which the spelling is given thus
-Buona Parte They Of Sarzana were
ennobled in the sixteenth century. and
continued to write their name with di,
or de, until the epoch when the Great One
was born. The noblesse, however, became
attenuated, both in Tuscany and In the
island, whereto q branch Of the family, at
some unknown date, removed and estab-
lished itself at Corte or Ajaccio.
It would appear that the Corsican Buon-
apartes kept an interest in Italy, whence
they originated. They concerned thom-
selves in the affairs of Tuscany, as we'll as
with those of Genoa. Doubtless they re-
aarded their Importance and rank as hav-
Ing been derived from the mainland, and
would fain share in the faded glories of
the Italian cities.
At the middle of the eighteenth Gen.
tury the head Of the Corsican Buonapartes
was Joseph, grandfather of Napoleon.
The family resided at Corte, In the center
of the island. Joseph received patent of
nobility from the grand duke Of Tuscany,
making him patrician; and this worth
less distinction was carried down to his
son, Carlo Buonaparte, whose rights were
confirmed by the Archbishop of Pisa and
the king Of France.
i The biographical position Of Corsica
made it d bone Of contention among the
Powers. From tho sixteenth to the eight
eenth century the island was under the
suzerainty Of Genoa. The people were
partisans. t' Some favored the @Genoese;
some, the French; and some, other italian
States. AT tho middle Of the eighteenth
century, there was Turbulence. Insured
ton came, and rebellion, and attempted
Independence. The patriots rose against
Genoa, and d certain General Won Neuhof
I'wss shout to bo made king, when French
army under General Marboeuf was sent
| into the island 10 bring 1t into subsection.
! The French had just lost their colonial
empire in North America, and were anx'
! ious to make gain In the Mediterranean
ito oounterbalance the growing power OF
Great Britain.
M After the episode Of Won Neuhof, the
E,natriot leader Pascal Paoli gained an a.