The Washington herald., 1913-12-21
THE DARKNESS
BEFORE THE Dawn
DATES FOR THIS CHAPTER.
FTER leaving "Tbe Path O

A FTER leaving THE Path of Ma
n poleon' at the Ecole Militaire Of
L = Paris, 1 next picked it up at VAL
ence whittier he came on borrowed
money to join his regiment, and where
his real education was to begin, with
himself as his teacher
1 found Valence nearly 400 miles south
of Paris on the railroad and high road
to Marseilles and the Riviera, It is an,
attractive old town of almost 5000 popu-
lation, close to the upper border of
Provence, where, seated well above the
banks of the River Rhone, between Lyons
and Avignon, il looks across a vine
grown plain to the Alpine foothills Of
Dauphiny on one side and the gentle
mountains of Cevennes on the other.
1t is but a step from the new to old
Nalence where the little streets twist
and turn and tumble down to the wide,
swift river. In the center of it stands
the cathedral. There I turned into the
winding Grande Rue and was in The
Path of Napoleon" l was looking for
No IS, which, with much neighborly as
sistance, 1 found at the corner Of the
still narrower Rue Croissant. There
stands a shockingly modern four-story
business block without an Identifying
tablet or even a street number on its
front. Yet here the eaglet perched for
awhile and gave Nalence its admission
ticket to the pages of history.
Apparently the present tenants were un-
conscious of the reflected glory in which
they dwelt. 1t was somewhat distract
ing, you may imagine, for me to stand
there under their puzzled stares and re-
call to memory the days of 1855, when
melancholy STRIPPING came and went IN
this winding lane of a Grande Rue. For
at No. As, Mile BOu, spinster who kept
house for her old father, lodged Second
Lieut.. BOnaparte at somewhat less than
3 a month As sub or second lieutenant
of the regiment of La Frere, his monthly
income was so. which after all deduc-
tions, left him 81 for clothes and extras.
Poverty Ills Teacher.
Poverty was one OF Napoleon's best
teachers in those days, when he pulled in
his belt at meal time and feasted on
Rousseau, Voltaire, and other nourishers
of his mind When ne ate a real meal,
which generally was only once a day,
he walked along this Grande Rue into
the Place des Clercs and thence turned
into the little Rue Perollerie. There,
where l saw two aged danes in tooth
less chatter. he used to dine at the Three
Pigeons restaurant. with one eye on the
bill of fare and the other on the few
cents to which he limited his appetite.
He remained as unattractive in ap-
DedranCe as ne ndQ DeeH
with a presence almost uncanny. Visit
ing a Corsican in a nearby town, the
earliest existing portrait of him was
drawn by his young host. 1t is a crude
piece of art, but it serves as evidence of
his uncomely youth.
The only social life he could afford
was the simplest. which is always the
best He brought letter from the Arch
bishop of Autun, nephew of his old
Marhaanf he
governor of Corsica, introducing him to
the abbe of st. Ruff at the old abbaye,
now the prefecture for the department
Of the Drone, down near the foot of
the Grande Rue. The able was a man
in touch with the progress Of thought
and the Able Raynal. whom the boy
officer came to know there ranked at
the time among the foremost philoso-
pliers of France.
His First Girl.
At the abbaye, too, this youth of six
teen, who had left home at nine, and been
brought up in a monastery, formed an
acquaintance with a hitherto unknown
species of the human race, a girl, Mile.
Colombier, and the shadow of this little
French lass was caught for all time on
the films in the moving picture of Ma
poleon's life. Her mother invited him
oft and while he said afterward that he
was in love with mademoiselle We have
no other detail of their brief romance
than that they picked and ate cherries
together in her orchard.
But woman's looks never were to be
Napoleon's books. The Maison des Tetes
stood opposite Mile Bou's lodging house
and the hoary heads sculptured on its
front still grin and glover on the way
farer by the Grande Rue. There used to
be a bookseller in this house of the
heads, and the gaunt shade of the second
lieutenant haunts the old place to this