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On the 15th of August, 1769, at Ajaccio, was born an infant, who received of his parents the name of Bonaparte and of Heaven that of Napoleon.

The first days of his childhood were spent in the midst of that feverish agitation which follows revolutions. Corsica, which for half a century had been breathing independence, had just been half conquered and half sold, and brought out from the slavery of Genoa only to fall into the power of France. Paoli, vanquished at Ponte-Nouvo, went to seek, with his brother and nephew, an asylum in England, where Alfieri was dedicating to him his Timoleon. The air that the new-born child breathed was hot with civil hates, and the bell which sounded his baptism was still quivering with the tocsin.

Charles Bonaparte, his father, and Lætitia Ramolino, his mother, both of patrician race and natives of that charming village of San-Miniato, which overlooks Florence, having been friends of Paoli, had abandoned his party and reunited themselves to the French influence. It was easy then for them to obtain of M. Marboeuf, who came back as governor of the island where he had landed ten years before as general, his protection to enable the young Napoleon to enter the Military School of Brienne. The request was granted, and some time after M. Berton, vice-principal of the college, inscribed on his register the following note:

“To-day, April 23rd, 1779, Napoleon Bonaparte is entered at the Royal Military School of Brienne-le-Chateau, at the age of nine years, eight months and five days.”

The new-comer was Corsican, that is to say, of a country which wrestled against civilization with such inactive force that its character was preserved at the loss of its independence. He spoke only the dialect of his maternal island; he had the burnt complexion of the south and the dark and piercing eye of the mountaineer. That was more than was necessary to excite the curiosity of his comrades and to increase his natural savagery; for the curiosity of infancy is mockery and want of compassion. A professor, named Dupuis, took pity on the poor isolated child, and charged himself with giving him private lessons in theFrench language. Three months later the child was far enough advanced in this study to receive the first elements of Latin. But, from the beginning, he manifested the repugnance he always retained for the dead languages, whilst, on the contrary, his aptitude for mathematics developed from the first lessons. The result was, that, by one of those agreements so frequent at college, he would find the solution of the problems that his comrades had to solve, and they, in exchange, would do for him themes and translations which he wished not to understand.

The kind of isolation in which young Bonaparte found himself during some time, and which was due to the impossibility of communicating his ideas, raised between him and his companions a sort of barrier, which never completely disappeared. This first impression, by leaving on his mind a painful remembrance which resembled malice, gave birth to that premature misanthropy, which made him seek solitary amusements, and in which some people have wished to see prophetic dreams of the rising genius. Besides, several circumstances, which in the lives of all others would have remained unperceived, gave some foundation for the accounts of those who have attempted to give an exceptional childhood to this wonderful manhood. We shall mention two of them.

One of the most usual amusements of young Bonaparte was the cultivation of a little flower garden surrounded by fences, into which he habitually retired in the hours of recreation. One day one of his comrades, who was curious to know what he could do thus alone in his garden, scaled the fence and saw him engaged in arranging in military order a great number of pebbles, the size of which designated their rank. At the noise which the indiscreet one made Bonaparte turned and, finding himself surprised, ordered the scholar to descend. Instead of obeying he laughed at the young strategist, who, little disposed to the pleasantry, picked up the largest of his pebbles and with it struck the joker in the middle of the forehead, who fell instantly quite dangerously wounded.

Twenty-five years later, that is to say, at the moment of his highest fortune, they announced to Napoleon that a person, who called himself his comrade at college, asked to speak with him. As, at all such times busy-bodies were waiting upon him with this pretext in order that they might see him, the ex-scholar of Brienne ordered the aide-de-camp to go and ask the name of this schoolfellow, but the name not awakening any remembrance in the mind of Napoleon, he said:

“Return and ask of that man if he cannot mention some circumstance which will place me on his track.”

The aide-de-camp delivered his message and returned saying that the petitioner for his only answer had shown him a scar which he had on the forehead.

“Ah! This time I remember,” said the Emperor; “ it is a General-in-chief that I struck on the head.”

During the winter of 1783 and 1784 there fell a great quantity of snow, which interrupted all out-door recreation. Bonaparte, forced, in spite of himself, to pass, in the midst of the noisy and unaccustomed amusements of his comrades, the hours which he ordinarily gave to the cultivation of his garden, proposed to make a sally, and by the aid of shovels and pickaxes to cut in the snow the fortifications of a city, which would then be attacked by the one body and defended by the other. The proposition was too congenial to be refused. The author of the project was naturally chosen to command one of the two parties. The city, besieged by him, was captured after a heroic resistance on the part of his adversaries. The next day the snow melted, but this recreation left a deep impression on the memory of the scholars. When they became men they recalled that young child, and they remembered the ramparts of snow that Bonaparte beat in holes as they saw the walls of so many cities fall before him.

As Bonaparte grew, the primitive ideas, the germ of which he had in some way carried in his mind, developed and indicated the fruits they would one day bear. The submission of Corsica to France, which gave to him, its only representative, the appearance of a vanquished enemy in the midst of his conquerors, was odious to him. One day when he was dining at the table of Father Berton, the professors, who had already many times noticed the national irritability of their scholar, affected to speak badly of Paoli. The color flushed immediately in the face of the young man, who could not contain himself.

“ Paoli,” said he, “ was a great man who loved his country like an old Roman, and I will never forgive my father, who was his aide-de-camp, for having concurred in the union of Corsica with France. He should have followed the fortunes of his general and fallen with him.”

Nevertheless, at the end of five years young Bonaparte was in the fourth class, and had learned all the mathematics that Father Patrault could teach him. His age was that at which one could pass from the school of Brienne to that of Paris. His notes were good, and this report was sent to King Louis XVI. by M. de Keralio, Inspector of Military Schools: p

“ M. de Bonaparte (Napoleon), born August 15th, 1769, height four feet ten inches and ten lines, is in his fourth class; of good constitution, excellent health, submissive character, honest, grateful, conduct very regular; and always distinguished by his application to mathematics. He knows very passably his history and geography; he is very weak in the ornamental exercises and in Latin, in which he has only made his fourth grade. He will be an excellent sailor. He deserves to pass to the Military School of Paris.”

In consequence of this report young Bonaparte obtained admission to the Military School of Paris, and on the day of his departure this memorandum was inscribed in the register:

“Oct. 17th, 1784, is sent out from the Royal School of Brienne, M. Napoleon de Bonaparte, born in the City of Ajaccio on the Island of Corsica, on the 15th day of August, 1769, son of the illustrious Charles Marie de Bonaparte, a deputy of the nobility of Corsica living in the said City of Ajaccio, and of Lady Laetitia Ramolino, according to the Act carried to the Register, Folio 31, and received into this establishment April 23rd, 1779.”

They have accused Bonaparte of being praised for an imaginary nobility and of having falsified his age; the fragments, which we have just quoted, answer these two accusations.

Bonaparte arrived at the capital by the coach from Nogent-sur-Seine.

Nothing remarkable signalized the stay of Bonaparte at the Military School of Paris except a memoir that he sent to his old vice-principal, Father Berton. The young legislator had found in the organization of this school vices which his rising aptitude for administration could not pass in silence. One of these vices, and the most dangerous of all, was the luxury with which the scholars were surrounded. Therefore Napoleon rose up especially against this luxury.

“ Instead,” said he, “ of maintaining numerous domestics around the scholars, giving them daily, meals with two courses, making parade of horsemanship, expensive as much for the horses as for the grooms, would it not be better, without, however, interrupting the course of their studies, to compel them to serve themselves, lessen their little cooking, which they should not do, make them eat army bread or some other kind like it, and accustom them to brush their coats and to clean their shoes and boots? Since they are poor and destined for military service, is not this the only education that should be given them? Subjected to a sober life, and compelled to take care of themselves, they would become more robust to brave the intemperate seasons, to bear with courage the fatigues of war, and to inspire the blind respect and confidence of the soldiers who would be under their orders.”

Bonaparte was fifteen years and a half when he proposed this project of reform. Twenty years after he founded the Military School of Fontainebleau.

In 1785, after brilliant examinations, Bonaparte was appointed second lieutenant of the regiment of the Fere, then in garrison in Dauphiny. After remaining some time at Grenoble, where his passage left no other trace than an apocryphal word on Turenne, he went to live at Valence. There some rays of the sunlight of the future commenced to creep into the dawn of the unknown young man. Bonaparte, they knew, was poor, but, poor as he was, he thought he could aid his family, and he called to France his brother Louis, who was nine years younger than he. Both took lodgings at the house of Mile. Bon, No. 4 Grande Rue. Bonaparte had a sleep-ing-room, and above this room little Louis inhabited a mansard. Every morning, faithful to his college customs, which later on he would make a virtue of the camps, Bonaparte awakened his brother by knocking on the floor with a walking stick and gave him his lessons in mathematics. One day the little Louis, who had great trouble in keeping this rule, descended with more regret and slowness than was his custom. Bonaparte had knocked on the floor a second time before the tardy scholar entered.

“Well, what is there then this morning? It seems to me that you are very lazy,” said Bonaparte.

“ Oh! brother,” answered the child, “ I was having a beautiful dream.”

“ And what did you dream? ”

“ I dreamt that I was king.”

“ And what was I then, Emperor? ” said the young under-lieutenant, shrugging his shoulders. “ Go! to your duty.”

And the daily lesson was, as customary, taken by the future king and given by the future emperor.1

Bonaparte lodged opposite a rich bookseller named Marcus Aurelius, the door of whose house, which bore, I believe, the date of 1530, is a gem of the Renaissance. It was there that he passed nearly all the hours of which his military service and his fraternal lessons left him the master. These hours were not completely lost, as we shall see.

On the 7th of October, 1808, Bonaparte was giving a dinner at Erfurth. His guests were the Emperor Alexander, the Queen of Westphalia, the King of Bavaria, the King of Wurtemburg, the King of Saxony, the Grand Duke Constantine, the Prince Primate, Prince William of Prussia, the Duke of Oldenburg, the Prince of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the Duke of Weymar, and the Prince Talleyrand. The conversation fell upon the Golden Bull, which, up to the establishment of the Confederation of the Rhine, had served as a constitution and a law for the election of emperors, and the number and quality of the electors. The Prince Primate entered into some details about this Bull, and fixed the date of it at 1409.

“I believe that you are mistaken,” said Napoleon, smiling, “ The Bull of which you speak was proclaimed in 1336 under the reign of the Emperor Charles IV.”

“ It is true, Sire,” answered the Prince Primate, “ I remember now; but how is it that Your Majesty knows these things so well? ”

“ When I was simply second lieutenant in the artillery--” said Napoleon.

At this beginning a movement of astonishment, so spirited, manifested itself among the noble guests that the narrator was forced to interrupt himself; but in an instant he repeated, smiling:

“ When I had the honor of being simply second lieutenant of artillery I remained three years in the garrison at Valence. I loved the world little, and lived very retired. A happy chance had me lodge near a learned and very courteous bookseller. I read and re-read his library during these three years of garrison life, and I have forgotten nothing, even matters which had no connection with my profession. Nature, moreover, has endowed me with a memory of numbers. It has happened to me very often with my agents, to cite them the detail and the whole number of their oldest accounts.”

This was not the only remembrance that Napoleon retained of Valence.

Among the few persons who saw Bonaparte at Valence, was M. de Tardiva, Abbot of Saint Ruf, which Order had been destroyed some time before. He met, at his house, Mile. Gregoire of Columbier, and fell in love with her. The family of this young person lived in a country place situated a half league from Valence, and called Bassiau. The young lieutenant was received into the house and made several visits. In the meanwhile a nobleman from Dauphiny, named M. de Bressieux, presented himself. Bonaparte saw that it was time for him to declare himself unless he wished to be outstripped. Consequently he wrote to Mile. Gregoire a long letter, in which he gave expression to all his sentiments towards her, and the contents of which he invited her to communicate to her parents. These, placed in the alternative of giving their daughter to a soldier without a future or to a nobleman possessed of some fortune, decided for the nobleman. Bonaparte was rejected, and his letter placed in the hands of a third person, who wished to return it to the writer, as they had requested her to do. But Bonaparte would not retake it.

“ Preserve it,” said he to the person, “ it will one day be a proof both of my love and the purity of my sentiments towards Mile. Gregoire.”

The person kept the letter, and the family still preserve it.

Three months later Mile. Gregoire wedded M. de Bressieux.

In 1806 Madame de Bressieux was called to Court with the title of Lady of Honor to the Empress, her brother sent to Turin with the rank of Prefect, and her husband was named Baron and Administrator of the Forests of the State.

The other persons with whom Bonaparte connected himself during his stay at Valence were Messrs. Monta-livet and Bachasson, who became, the one, Minister of the Interior, and the other, Inspector of the Supplies of Paris. On Sundays these three young men paraded together, almost always outside of the city, stopping there sometimes to look at an open-air ball, which was given, in consideration of two sous for each gentleman for each quadrille, by a grocer of the city, who in his leisure moments carried on the profession of fiddler. This fiddler was an old soldier, who had retired on leave in Valence, a married man, and there carried on in peace his double calling; but, as it was still insufficient, he solicited and obtained, when the Departments were established, a place as despatching clerk of the Bureaus of the Central Administration. It was there that the first battalion of volunteers took him in 1790 and dragged him away with them.

This old soldier, grocer, fiddler, and despatching clerk was afterwards Marshal Victor, Duke de Bellune.

Bonaparte left Valence leaving three francs ten sous of debts at the house of his pastry-cook, named Coriol.

Let not our readers be astonished if we find similar anecdotes. When one writes the biography of a Julius Caesar, a Charlemagne, or a Napoleon, the lantern of Diogenes serves no more to find the man. The man is found by posterity and appears to the eyes of the world, radiant and sublime. It is then the road he has gone over before arriving at his pedestal that it is necessary to follow, and the fainter the traces that he has left in certain parts of his route the more unknown they are and consequently they excite more curiosity.

Bonaparte arrived at Paris at the same time as Paoli. The Constitutional Assembly had just admitted Corsica into a participation in the privileges of the French laws. Mirabeau had declared from the tribune that it was time to recall the fugitive patriots who had defended the independence of the island, and Paoli had returned. Bonaparte was welcomed as a son by the old friend of his father. The young enthusiast found himself face to face with his hero, who had just been named Lieutenant General and Military Commander of Corsica.

Bonaparte obtained leave and profited by it to follow Paoli and see again his family, which he had left six years before. The patriotic General was received with delirium by all the partisans of independence, and the young Lieutenant assisted at the triumph of the celebrated exile. The enthusiasm was such that the unanimous vote of his fellow-citizens brought Paoli, at that time at the head of the National Guard, to the presidency of the Provincial Administration. He remained some time in perfect harmony with the Assembly; but a motion of the Abbe Charrier, who proposed to cede Corsica to the Duke of Parma in exchange for Plaisan-tin, the possession of which was intended to indemnify the Pope for the loss of Avignon, was to Paoli a proof of the little importance that the metropolis attached to the preservation of its country. It was during this interval that the English Government, which had welcomed Paoli in his exile, opened communication with the new President. Besides, Paoli did not conceal the preference which he accorded to the British Constitution over that prepared by the French Legislature. From this time dates the difference of opinion between the young Lieutenant and the old General. Bonaparte remained a French citizen. Paoli became again a Corsican General.

Bonaparte was recalled to Paris at the commencement of 1792. He there again met Bourrienne, his old college friend, who had arrived from Vienna after having passed through Prussia and Poland. Neither the one nor the other of the two scholars of Brienne was happy. They united their misery in order to make it less burdensome. ' One was soliciting service at the War Office; the other in the Foreign Affairs Office. Neither of the two received an answer. Then they dreamt of commercial speculations, which their want of funds almost always prevented them from realizing. One day they had the idea of renting several houses in course of construction in Rue Montholon for the purpose of underletting them afterwards, but the claims of the proprietors appeared to them so exaggerated that they were forced to abandon their speculation for the same reason that had made them abandon so many others. In coming out of the house of the builder the two speculators perceived not only that they had not dined, but also that they had not the means with which to dine. Bonaparte remedied this inconvenience by putting his watch in pledge.

Dark prelude to the 10th of August, the 20th of June arrived. The two young men had arranged a meeting-place for breakfast at the house of a restaurateur on La Rue St. Honore. They were just finishing their repast when they were attracted to the window by a great tumult and cries of “ fa ira! Vive la nation! Vive les sans-culottes! A has le veto!2 ” It was a mob of six or eight thousand men, led by Santerre and the Marquis de Saint Hurugues, descending from the Faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau and forming themselves into an assembly.

“ Let us follow this rabble,” said Bonaparte. And the two young men directed their steps towards the Tuileries and made a stand on the edge of the water. Bonaparte leaned against a tree and Bourrienne sat down on a parapet.

From there they could not see what was passing, but they easily divined what it was, when a window overlooking the garden opened and Louis XVI. appeared covered with a red cap, which had just been presented to him on the end of a pike by a man of the people.

“ Coglione! Coglione! ” murmured the young Lieutenant in his Corsican dialect, raising his shoulders, who up to that time had been silent and motionless.

“ What would you have done? ” said Bourrienne.

“ It would only be necessary to sweep away four or five hundred of them with artillery,” answered Bonaparte, “ and the remainder would at once run.”

During the entire day he spoke only of this scene, which made upon him one of those strong impressions that might ever be felt.

Bonaparte thus saw unrolling before his eyes the first events of the French Revolution. He assisted, simply as a spectator, in the massacre of the 2d of September. Afterwards, seeing that he could not obtain service, he resolved to make a new voyage to Corsica.

The intrigues of Paoli with the English Cabinet had made, in the absence of Bonaparte, such development that he was mistaken in his projects. One interview that the young Lieutenant and the old General had at the house of the Governor of Corsica was terminated by a rupture. The two old friends separated, not to meet again except on the battle-field. The same evening a flatterer of Paoli attempted to speak badly of Bonaparte before him.

“ Chut! ” said the General, carrying his finger to his lips, “he is a young man of old-fashioned shape.”

Before long Paoli openly raised the standard of revolt. Appointed June 26, 1793, by the partisans of England, Generalissimo and President of a military court at the city of Corte, he was, the 17th of July following, outlawed by the National Convention. Bonaparte was absent. He had obtained the active service he had so many times requested. Named Commander of the National Guard, he found himself on board the vessel of Admiral Truguet. During this time he took possession of Fort Saint-Etienne, but the victors were soon forced to evacuate. Bonaparte, on re-entering Corsica, found the island in rebellion. Salicetti and Lacombe Saint-Michael, members of the Convention charged with putting into execution the decree rendered against the rebel, had been obliged to retire to Calvi. Bonaparte went there to rejoin them and with them attempted an attack on Ajaccio, which was repulsed. The same day a conflagration broke out in the city. The Bonapartes saw their house burned. Some time afterward a decree was passed condemning them to perpetual banishment. The fire left them without a home. The proscription left them without a country. They turned their eyes towards Bonaparte and Bonaparte turned his towards France. All this poor exiled family embarked in a frail ship and the future Caesar set sail, protecting his fortune and that of his four brothers, three of whom would be kings and his three sisters, of whom one would become a queen.

The whole family stopped at Marseilles, reclaiming the protection of that France on account of which they had been proscribed. The Government listened to their complaints. Joseph and Lucien obtained employment in the War Office; Louis was appointed under-officer; and Bonaparte passed as first lieutenant, that is to say with promotion, to the 4th regiment of infantry. After a little time he rose by right of seniority to the grade of captain in the second company of the same corps, then in garrison at Nice.

The bloody year ’93 had arrived. One half of France was wrestling with the other. The west and south were on fire. Lyons was taken after a siege of four months. Marseilles had opened its gates to the Convention. Toulon had delivered its port to the English.

An army of thirty thousand men, composed of troops which under the command of Kellermann had besieged Lyons, some drawn from the Army of the Alps, some from the Army of Italy, and some from all the requisitions levied in the neighboring Departments, advanced against the sold city. The contest commenced in the gorges of Ollioules. General Duthiel, who should have directed the artillery, was absent. General Dom-martin, his lieutenant, was disabled in this first engagement. The first officer of this arm filled his. place by right. That first officer was Bonaparte. This time chance was in accord with genius, supposing that for genius chance is not called Providence.

Bonaparte received his appointment, presented himself to the staff officer, and was introduced to General Cartaux, a gorgeous man gilded from feet to head, who asked him what he wanted. The young officer showed him the commission which required him to come, under orders, to direct the operations of the artillery.

“ Artillery! ” answered the honest General, “ we have no need of it. We will this evening take Toulon with the bayonet and to-morrow we will burn it.”

But however great was the assurance of the General-in-chief, he could not get possession of Toulon without knowing its location. So he had patience until the next day. But at the break of day he took his Aide-de-camp, Dupas, and Bonaparte, the Chief of Battalion, into his cabriolet in order to inspect the first offensive arrangements. Upon the observations of Bonaparte he had, although with regret, renounced the bayonet and had come back to the artillery. In consequence, orders were given directly by the General-in-chief, and these were those orders, the execution and performance of which he had just examined and hastened.

The heights from which they discovered Toulon, couched in the midst of its semi-oriental garden and bathing its feet in the sea, were scarcely reached when the General alighted from his cabriolet with the two young men and plunged into a vineyard, in the midst of which he perceived some pieces of cannon ranged behind a sort of epaulement. Bonaparte looked around him and divined nothing that was going on. The General enjoyed an instant the astonishment of his Chief of Battalion, then turning towards his Aide-de-camp with a smile of satisfaction, he said:

“ Dupas, are those our batteries? ”

“Yes, General,” he responded.

“ And our artillery park? ”

“ It is not far off.”

“ And our red-hot balls? ”

“They are heating them in the neighboring furnaces.”

Bonaparte could not believe his eyes, but he was obliged to believe his ears. He measured the distance with the trained eye of a strategist, and it was one league and a half, or less, from the city. At first he believed that the General wished, what is called in college and war terms, to test his young Chief of Battalion, but the gravity with which Cartaux continued his arrangements left him in no doubt. Then he chanced an observation on the distance and expressed fear that the red-hot balls would not reach the city.

“ Believest thou? ” said Cartaux.3

“ I fear it, General,” answered Napoleon; “ perhaps it might be well before embarrassing ourselves with red-hot balls to try with cold ones to well assure ourselves of the range.”

Cartaux found the idea ingenious and ordered them to charge and fire a piece, while he looked on the walls of the city for the effect that the blow would produce. Bonaparte pointed out at about a thousand paces in front of him the ball, which had broken the olive trees, furrowed the earth, ricochetted, and died, bounding scarcely to the third part of the distance that the General-in-chief had calculated to see it go.

The proof was conclusive, but Cartaux wished not to yield and pretended that “ those aristocrats of Marseilles had spoiled the powder.”

However, spoiled or not, as the powder did not carry any farther, it was necessary to have recourse to other measures. They returned to the headquarters. Bonaparte asked for a plan of Toulon, unfolded it on a table, and, after having studied an instant the situation of the city and the different works which defended it, from the redoubt built on the summit of Mt. Faron, which commanded it, to Forts Lamalgue and Malbousquet which protected its right and left, the young chief of battalion put his finger on a new redoubt erected by the English, and said with the rapidity and conciseness of genius:

“ It is there that Toulon is.”

Cartaux, in his turn, understood nothing at all. He had taken the words of Bonaparte literally, and turning towards Dupas, his faithful friend, said:

“ It appears that Captain Camion is not strong in geography.”

This was the first nickname of Bonaparte. We will see why he has since been known as the “Little Corporal.”

At that moment Gasparin, the Representative of the People, entered. Bonaparte had heard of him, not only as a truthful, loyal and brave patriot, but also as a man of good sense and quick mind. The Chief of Battalion went direct to him.

“ Citizen Representative,” said he to him, “ I am Chief of Battalion of artillery. On account of the absence of General Duthiel and the wounding of General Dom-martin, this arm finds itself under my direction. I demand that nobody but I have anything to do with it, or I answer for nothing.”

“ And who art thou to answer for anything? ” demanded the Representative of the People, astonished at seeing a young man of twenty-three years speak to him in such a tone and with such assurance.

“ Who am I? ” answered Bonaparte, drawing him in a corner and speaking in a low voice. “ I am a man who knows his business, thrown in the midst of people who are ignorant of theirs. Demand of the General-in-chief his plan of battle, and you will see whether I am right or wrong.”

The young officer spoke with such conviction that Gasparin did not hesitate an instant.

“ General,” said he, approaching Cartaux, “ the Representatives of the People desire that in three days thou submit thy plan of battle to them.”

“ Thou hast but to wait three minutes,” answered Cartaux, “ and I will give it to thee.”

In effect the General sat down, took a pen, and wrote on a loose sheet of paper that famous plan of campaign, which has become a model of its kind. Here it is.

“The General of Artillery will batter down Toulon during three days, at the end of which time I will attack in three columns and sweep it away.

“Cartaux.”

The plan was sent to Paris, and placed in the hands of the Committee of Engineers. The committee found it much more gay than learned. Cartaux was recalled and Dugommier sent in his place.

The new General found, on arriving, all the dispositions made by his young Chief of Battalion. It was one of those sieges where force and courage could do nothing at first, and where cannon and strategy must prepare all. There was not an angle of the hill where artillery had not engaged with artillery. It thundered on all sides like an immense thunder-storm crossed by flashes of lightning. It thundered on the heights of the mountains and ramparts. It thundered from the plain and the sea. One would have said that it was a tempest and a volcano at the same time.

It was in the midst of this network of flames that the Representatives of the People wished to change some things in a battery established by Bonaparte. The movement had already commenced when the young Chief of Battalion arrived and put everything back in its place. The Representatives of the People wished to make some observations.

“ Mind your business of Deputy,” answered Napoleon, “ and let me do my work as artillerist. The battery is well there and I will answer for it with my head.”

The general attack commenced on the 16th. From that time the siege was but a long assault. On the morning of the 17th the besiegers took possession of Pas-de-Leidet and Croix-Faron. At midday they drove the allies from the redoubt Saint-Andre, the Fort Pomet, and the two Forts Saint-Antoine. At last, towards evening, lighted at times by the storm and the artillery, the Republicans entered the English redoubt, and then, having accomplished his purpose, and regarding himself as master of the city, Bonaparte, wounded in the thigh by a bayonet thrust, said to General Dugommier, who was wounded by two shot wounds, one in the knee, the other in the arm, and falling both from exhaustion and fatigue:

“Go to rest, General. We have just taken Toulon and you will sleep there after to-morrow.”

On the 18th the forts of Eguillette and of Balagnier were taken and batteries directed on Toulon. At the sight of several houses, which caught fire, and at the whistling of bullets, which furrowed the streets, confusion spread among the allied troops. Then the besiegers, whose eyes darted into the city and upon the road, saw the conflagration show itself at several points which they had not attacked. This was the English, who, deciding to leave, had set fire to the arsenal, naval stores, and the French vessels, which they could not take away. At the sight of the flames, a general cry went up. The whole army demanded the assault, but it was too late; the English embarked under the fire of our batteries, abandoning those who had betrayed France for them, and whom they had betrayed in their turn. In the meanwhile night came on. The flames which were rising over several points were extinguished in the midst of great clamors. These were caused by the convicts, who had broken their chains and smothered the flames kindled by the English.

The next day, the 19th, the Republican army entered the city, and that evening, as Bonaparte had foretold, the General-in-chief slept at Toulon.4

Dugommier forgot not the services of the young Chief of Battalion, who, twelve days after the capture of the city, received the rank of General of Brigade.

It is here that history takes Napoleon, never more to leave him.

We go now at a pace precise and rapid, to accompany Bonaparte in the career through which he has gone as General-in-chief, Consul, Emperor, and exile; after having seen him, like a rapid meteor, reappearing and shining an instant on the throne, we will follow him to that island where he went to die, as we have taken him in that island where he was born.

1. This scene transpired before M. Parmentier, surgeon of the regiment in which Bonaparte was second lieutenant.

2. It will go! Long live the nation! Long live the knaves (or sans-culottes)! Down with the veto! J. B. L.

3. At one time during the French Revolution the tu and toi, or tutoiment as it is called, was, by law, required to be used in the place of vous.—J. B. L.

4. An interesting account of Napoleon at Toulon may be found in the January (1894) number of Harper's Magazine in an article from the pen of Germain Bapst.—J. B. L.