The true northerner., 1896-01-17


for living! Marbeuf finally prevailed
with the authorities to make Joseph Bon
aparte also 1--WE will now drop the Italian
form Buonaparte) q military pensioner
But the fathers death and Napoleon 3
protest countervailed the project and Jo-
seph was doomed To remain cadet Of the
Church. For Lucien, who developed a
passion for polite studies and wished to be
a priest, a scholarship was obtained for
the school at 'Brienne. Such Is the per-
versity of fate. AS to Napoleon, it was
agreed that instead of going into the navy,
as Keralio had recommended and as Mar
bBuf had wished, he should become in
stead . lieutenant In the artillery. After
his graduation, he should be assigned to
the Regiment La Fere, stationed at Va
lence, ON the left bank of the Rhone, three
hundred miles away as the bird fiics-far
to the south.
The final examination at L'Ecole Mill
taire was passed. Like many other incip-
lent military heroes-our own included
Napoleon did not obtain a high rank In
his Classes. His papers gave him only the
forty second place from the head Louis
Antoine Bourienne his future private SEQ
retary, had been far above him at Brienne
Des Mazis, his favorite classmate, was
now graduated far below him at l. Ecole
Militaire. But the grade was sufficient;
and he was enabled with his commission
as lieutenant to choose the artillery as his
arm of the service.
For two months august to October,
1857 the restraints of red tape held back
Lieutenant Bonaparte from going to his
place. His means gave utterly out. At
last late In the fall of 1885, he set out by
conveyance from Paris as far as Lyons
but was then obliged, from sheer inability
to pay his fare, to walk the remainder of
the journey to Valence. There he arrived
and took his place in the Regiment La
Fere-doubtless so called because 1t had
no iron in it
Great was Napoleon's surprise at the
character of the discipline. BY the officers
and men almost everything was practiced
except those exercises which tended to
make them soldiers. They were gay, dis
spated, frivolous. The pay was INSULT
cient to support them in their career of
pleasure and vice; but they were nearly
all scions of the nobility, and knew not
what it was to be limited in the means of
qualification. Napoleons poverty and am
bition alike held him back for moment
from this manner of life; but, strange to
say, he presently threw himself into the
swim, and during the winter of 17S5-S6 he
dissipated like the rest There seemed to be
nothing to do about the barracks of Va
lence except to join the rout, or else to be-
come again a solitary student; and for
that there was not the slightest encourage
ment
Valence was a small but important city.
The young military officers were welcomed
Inv NM far N drax N
rooms. For the nonce Bonaparte Oonclud-
ed that he must become accomplished
that he must be social lion and quaff the
bowl of pleasure with his fellows He had
social passports from Marb1ufs nephew,
who was now the young Bishop of Autun.
The Lieutenant got the entree to the home
of important personages such as the Able
Saint-Ruff. He knew what wine was
and fashionable women. For him the
doors of the ballroom swung open; and
his slight form I'm military regalia might
be seen waltzing with luxurious woman
hood much taller than himself! Caesar, as
late as his twenty eighth year, just be-
fore he was elected military tribune, took
such n plunge into the rivers Of indul-
gence.
But to nature such as Napoleon's
pleasure, however toYrid, could not long
suffice. The Lieutenant presently turned
upon himself in anger, and sudden re-
form was the immediate result. The
thoughtful brow and sullen manner re-
turned. He went back gloomily to- his
books; recovered his vantage, and hence
forth to the end of his Hfe--though many
time he heard the Sirens singing on
nearby shores-he never postponed his
ambitions for the delirious dreams and
heeting hallucinations OF dissipated life
During his career as student, Napo-
Icons general reading had been in the ma
ture of excursions along the coasts of po-
litical philosophy. The French manner
caught his imagination. He talked of lib
erty, of the virtues of the elder Romans
of humanity in state Of nature-as re-
vealed by Jean jacques Now, in the
spring of 17S6-recoveriDg himself from
the winters revel-he turned from the
"Contrat Sociale, which he had begun to
distrust as ground of political life, to
the Historic Phiiosophique" of the Able
Raynal. Here he lost himself in the mys-
teries (and mists) of that science which is
said to teach by example
The writings of the Able Raynal, from
being a conglomerate In which several
strong hands-notably that Of Diderot-
uthu RTcdb poTu, WcIc bOW III thc ooccba-
ant. The French mind caught them,
embraced them, and adored. They were
thought for the time to be the be-all and
the end all of political philosophy. Behold
Napoleon, whose mind had already been
well stocked with the fascinating but un-
profitable stories of Herodotus, Diodorus,
Strabo Plutarch, Xenophon, ct Id omne
genus, s,-bebold him at his oandle-lig ghted,
deal board table In the barracks of Va
lence, rising in thought somewhat from
the particulars of human story to the gen.
eral laws of conduct. Be 1t remembered,
however. that at that epoch the human
mind had not yet gained the first glimpse
of that universal Conference and consisten-
cy Of all things which constitutes the bot
tom principle of the New History. AS for
the unfledged Jacobinism in him, that
was sufficiently inaamed with the knowl-
edge that five years previously this same
"Histoire Philosophique" had been burned
at the stake-so to speak-in Paris, and
It's author driven into exile.
Meanwhile, in August Of 1887, while
the members of our Constitutional Con-
vention were hard at work in Philadelphia
building their ship of state, an insurrec-
tion against the French government broke
ot,t I'm, Ivopc hraa nm los N fhss nj var