The Washington herald., 1913-12-07
By JAMES MORGAN

While Napoleon was q parvenu among
kings, he was an aristocrat among Cor
sicans and belonged to one Of the first
families of Ajaccio. His father was ''the
noble Signor Carlo di Buonaparte" in the
record of his marriage, and by the same
evidence his mother the daughter OF
''the noble Signor Jean Jerome Ramo-
lino."
A Tour of the House.
The place has hardly been occupied
since the Bonapartes were banished from
Corslca-to fame and fortune. Napol-
cons mother willed il to the King of
Rome, but she outlived the King, and
at her death it came into the possession
of King Joseph Bonaparte. Now 1t is
the property of the ex-Empress Eugene.
A knock at the door. therefore, would
only break the stiffness OF the deserted
mansion and 1 raped on the door of
the custod.an's house, which faces the
tiny place Letizia across the street from
the birthplace, where Eugene has
bought and sown with flower seed the
site OF the girlhood home OF Napoleon s
mother, the house of the Ramolini and
the Feschs. Once when I raped a big
mountain of a Corsican came out in his
uniform of high cap and long black
coat with silver buttons and again his
stalwart and smiling wife greeted me
and let me in the great house with a
shiny old steel key that must be nearly
a foot long.
In the large front room on the second
floor, the salon de visite, the inevitable
register awaited my autograph and the
equally inevitable table covered with
post cards awaited my pennies. But the
memory does not linger long there. It
hastens on to the smaller but still fairly
large chamber, whose one window looks
out on the side street There are the
walls on which the eyes OF Napoleon
first opened. There is the low, narrow
sofa where the young mother lay in the
clothes she wore at church and where
the Child of Destiny was born.
A Bride of Fourteen. d,
A bride before she was fourteen,
Letizia was now nineteen, and with the
birth Of Napoleon four children had been
born to her, the two first, however, hav-
ing failed to lay hold on life. Remem-
bering that sad experience and her re-
cent struggles and privations with the
army in the field, there was a natural
anxiety about the newcomer.
In land of lovely women, Letizia had
worn from girlhood the challenging title
of the most beautiful woman in Cor
sica." According to the standards of
a race of low stature, she was of medium
height and of graceful carriage, with
the small hands and feet and ears, the
regular teeth, the chestnut hair, the
noble forehead, the brilliant eyes, the
long, well-formed nose, the fine mouth.
and strong chin which Napoleon was to
inherit as he developed into manhood.
1t is certain, however. that he was not
hailed as a pretty baby or one worthy
of beautiful mother and a handsome
father, and for long time the family
was troubled because his big head was
so out Of proportion to his really frail
body.
His mother nursed him while she could
and then her place was taken by a sail
or's wife, Camilla nari, another name
immortalized by association with this
infant, her ''Nabulionello," as the good
woman fondly called her charge.
Although Letizia was attentive to her
church duties. she neglected for two
years to have Napoleon baptized. Then
the ceremony was hastened on account
o. the birth Of a sister, whose promise of
life was slender and who lived only five