, 1901-01-21
NAPOLEON AS A BOY.
Some TRAITS THAT MADE HIM
GREAT.
He Entered with the Career of
Commonplace Omcsr Before Him
Original Failures We're His Future
Salvation-His Genius. q

Professor Sloane. whose history Of
Napoleon was published last year, on
tributes to the Youths Companion a
very interesting article on the great
emperor's boyhood. He says. among
other things:
Passing from garrison duty In VAL
ence. he was stationed in town after
town until his state of body and mind
became wretched. He then sought and
obtained furlough upon furlough, visit
Ing and revisiting his home. It is hard
to depict the distracted state at that
time of France and her recently &C
Viired province of Corsica. but the con-
diton Of Napoleon was more distracted
still.
He felt himself to be the strongest
personally in his family, and bound to
Do Its mainstay. Trying one thing af-
ter another guerrilla
warfare or political agitation-all his
enorts came to naught. and he entered
on manhood with every hope shattered,
With no career but that OF a common
place ONCE open before him, with a
teverish constitution, and under the
burden Of caring for a widowed mother
with a large family.
Yet, after all, the boy Is the father
OF the man. Underlying all his fail
ures were the qualities of his genius.
He was very vague in hts religious
Ideas. but he felt a profound respect,
not for the ecclesiasticism which, like
Voltaire, he considered to be a curse, but
for the men and women Of pure lives
and for the faith which he himself had
not, but which he knew to be their
guide. This embryo OF respect devel-
oped into the regard for religion and
the church as a bulwarh of society
which led him in manhood to form the
alliance between state and church
known as the concordat. He was like
wise. according to his light. a good
son and brother. In the depths of his
poverty he shared his scanty food and
poor lodging with his younger brother
Louis, while he taught the little fellow
to the best Of his ability; and he let
NO opportunity pass to renew his
fathers suppliant pleas for state aid
In money or education for the men,
bers Of his family. To the family as
q basic institution Of society he gave
his best attention when at the height
OF his power. and put the avs Of the
family where they are still in France.
He was thrifty. too; his debts were
few and trivial, and when fortune IA
vored him he paid such as he recalled
to tho last farthing. But the earliest,
as 1t was the continuous manifesto
ton OF senius in Napoleon Bonaparte
was his untiring industry. He was not
unlike the armament in Goethe's IA
nous lines, without haste, but with
out rest, turning ON the pole" except
In his r~estlossasss. The deficiency of
his training in infancy and at school
could have been supplied by order and
guidance in his reading and reflection,
or even by the unconscious Impressions
from w~elf-regulated surroundings and
normal society. But Of all these there
was not one: on the contrary, the
chaotic influences of a world passing
from n extreme to another distorted
his view and exaggerated to his ap-
prehension what was novel or queer
in the books he read. As the intes-
tine disorders Of France and Corsica
grow worse and worse, he had several
trials In Just such enterprises as would
have enabled him to show the highest
qualities Of . fighter and leader; but
he made poor work Of each and all,
being punished for his incapacity and
overlooked in the many schemes he
formed for advancement Nsverthe-
les, hfs present failures were his fu-
turs salvation. OF really high prilci-
pie he had very little. and in early
manhood he was this and that by
turns, - he superhcially noted the
vsering Of fortunes weathsrcock. 1t
was. therefore. after q sever and BIT
ter apprenticeship that at Toulon he
became almost By chance a member of
the council Of war. and gave the hint
which, when adopted and elaborated,
furnished the means Of victory to the
French revolutionists. Thenceforward
he rose STEADILY. and a he rose be
made each occasion serve his purpose,
not merely by shrswd calculation, of
which he had plenty. but mainly by
the habits Of industry he had acquired
In the long humiliation Of his boy
hood.