The Washington herald., 1913-12-07

the chapel saw at first no other epitaph
than that OF Mater Regum," but draw
ing nearer I read the engraved roll of
Letizia's princely offspring. Her silent
companions in the chapel are her half
brother, Cardinal Fesch. and two princes
and a princess among the lesser known
Of the Bonapartes.
Tae idol wOrshipers.
When Letizia's remains were en-
throned here, having first been brought
from Rome and placed in a chapel of
the cathedral the star of the Bonapartes
was risen again and was shining glori-
ousIy on the Second Empire. Today
Ajaccio, alone in a faithless world, re-
mains faithful to the memory of the van
ished empire and its dynasty.
Some lightning impressionist has de-
scribed the town as the shade of Napo-
leon, with houses built around it, It
Is community of idol worshipers: II is
all big Napoleonic museum, where
every trinket of the Bonapartes is sacred
ly cherished.
There is only one Napoleonic object in
town which the Ajaccians do not take
seriously. This is the group OF statuary
in the Place du Diamant. at the edge OF
the sea. where Napoleon in Roman tog-
gerry sits in bronze on a horse poised atop
afoot at the corners. Even the idola-
trous smile at the stiff group. which Is
derisively called the inkstand."
More interesting is the big, wide square
itself. for it was the playground OF Ma
poleon and his first battlefield. Whether
II was all AusterlitZ and no Waterloo for
him in those youthful engagements we
are left to wonder. Ajaccio then was a
little walled town, with a gate and bas-
~. NhA Tod Al
at the point OF the peninsula the $500 in
habitants were packed in eighteen or
twenty streets The mobiles and mer-
chants, and their retainers, lived in the
old houses within the wall while the
sailors, mechanics, and laborers dwelt IN
the hardscrabble village outside.
His First Battlefield.
Between the boys of those two cum
munities there was vendetta be-
queathed from generation to generation
of boyhood. and Napoleon first got into
action as the champion of his side in
this inherited quarrel, marshaling his
troops, armed with sticks and stones, to
drive the invaders out of the town gate
and to meet hostile re-enforcements un-
der the wall The boy sprang from a
fighting race and was bred to war in an
age of strife. His earliest lesson in his
tory was OF the Forty Years War,
which ended at his birth. '1 was born"
he once said. when my native land died"
AS the stirring story OF the long and un-
equal struggle OF his people dawned upon
his understanding, he adopted Paoli a.
his model and his little breast was filed
with patriotic zeal.
Friends of the family, seeing him eat
ing soldiers bread in the streets. were
shocked by his presenting a spectacle so
unbecoming his parentage and reported
II to his mother. who found II was
habit OF the boy to swap his homemade
bread for the coarser kind issued to the
garrison. 'T am a soldier" he insisted.
"and intend to eat what the soldiers
eat
Here on the Place du Diamant. where
now he rides his war horse and where
he fought the mimic but no less earnest
battles of his boyhood. i shall keaye the
little warrior today, munching his SOL
diers' rations and grasping his wooden
sword with the hand the rod OF empire
will sway.
Copyright. 1913. by James Morsaa1