Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-03-17

wine-trade with Italy, but had failed as he did with most things else. Lucien, a student at Brienne, was doing his best to get transfer to Aix, where he might substitute priestly for military edu- cation. Madame de Bonaparte, now thirty-seven years Of age, was hoping against hope that the government would pay her the petty stipend due for the care of her mulberry orchards, but no payment was made.
 There came want into the household Lieutenant Bonaparte, making the con dition of his family a plausible excuse sought, and in February of 1786, ob- tained, leave of absence to visit Corsica. Thither he went, in poor health and general morbidity of mind. By this time his arbitrary character had begun to show itself in full force. Once at home, be played the despot He hectored all his kinsfolk, with the exception of the mother, and she cCuld hardly withstand his impetuosity, 8Fllfulness and gloom.
 Home again after an absence of near ly nine years, the young officer busied himself more with things great than things little. He was more concerned with the political condition of the world than with the daily needs of his moth CTS house He dwelt more on the state of Corsica than on the emptiness of Ma dame Bonaparte's cuisine-more on the woes of Ajaccio than on those of his brothers and sisters stomachs. He con- ceived himself to be the patriot par ex- oellence of his age, and spent more time in delivering socialistic monologues than in contriving the means to rescue tho family from impending ruin.
 It was at this juncture that Napoleon began to concern himself especially about the institutions and history of England. Along with his Necker he studied Smith Wealth of Nations, " then only twelve years from the press The Elizabethan age-not indeed for the intellectual glory that was in it, but for its political intrigues-impressed him greatly; and he undertook to do into fiction the features of that era in novel entitled the Count of Essex. " Then he flew back to his History of Corsica, , revised the parts which he had sent to the Abbe Raynal, and pressed on with the rest. Alongside of Voltaire, he would set up a rival pro- duetion of his own, called the Masked Prophet "a marvellous and impossible invention out of Persiai Literature was thus mixed with affairs; fiction flourish ed at the meager meals which Madame Bonaparte was able to set for her fam fly; and anathemas of Joseph s unproft- able wine-shop were illuminated with paragraphs about the glories of rebel lion.
 Bonaparte's leave of absenoe-so ea- gerly soaght-soon became asintoIerable i to him as to the rest. His paper gave him privilege to be away from his com mand for six months; but before the end of the fourth month-iuventing easuis= tieal reasons-he impatiently left Gorsi- ca to rejoin his company During his stay in the island, he had accomplished mething-something that would have been much ia any other He had induced the French intendant to agree to allow his mothers claim. He had pushed for ward the inert Joseph to try the law as a profession, and had seen him installed at Bastia. Ho had urged upon his gouty uncle the necessity of patriotism He had drawn up and submitted a system of coast defenses for the principal ports of the island. He had prepared Q scheme for the creation of an insular army He had studied and written necessarily at furious speed, completing his Oriental novel and his History of Corsica. '' The latter was cast in the epistolary form, and was dedicated to Monseigneur Marbpuf, now promoted to the see of Sens.
 Meanwhile tho Regiment La Fere had been ordered from Douai, to Auxonne. in Cote d'0r, 182 miles from Paris. Thither Napoleon repaired, to rejoin his command, in the last week of May, 1788. He took with him the manuscript of his History of Corsica, {" seeking a pub fisher, but finding none, either at Va fence or Lyons or Auxonne or Paris or anywhere else in this mundane sphere forever.
 It would be impossible to define the mental condition of Napoleon at this stage of his development. Politically for though soldier he was always q politician he went halting between two forces. The one tendency drew him powerfully towards the local independ- ence of his native island. This involved hatred of the conquest and annexation of Corsica to France. It also involved hatred of France itself of the French race; and of the French monarchy in particular. But the other tendency drew Franceward with equal stress. It was from the powerful fact of France that all benefits had thus far flowed to the family of Bonaparte. By France he had himself been educated. Besides, Corsica even as an independent state, was limited field of action. France is great. France offers worldwide distino- tion. Our commission as Lieutenant of artillery is a French commission, and our very. sword is a French blade.
 But our History of Corsica" is a pa triotic and insurrectionary document.