Napoleon, not immediately recalling his name to mind, inquired if the applicant could designate some incident of boyhood which would bring him to his recollection. "Sire!" replied the courtier; "he has a deep scar upon his forehead which he says was inflicted by your hand." "Ah!" rejoined Napoleon, smiling; "I know the meaning of that scar perfectly well. It was caused by an ice bullet which I hurled at his head. Bid him enter." The poor man made his appearance, and immediately obtained from Napoleon every thing that he requested.
At one time the students at Brienne got up a private theatre for their entertainment. The wife of the porter of the school, who sold the boys cakes and apples, presented herself at the door of the theatre to obtain admission to see the play, of the death of Cæsar, which was to be performed that evening. Napoleon's sense of decorum was shocked at the idea of the presence of a female among such a host of young men, and he indignantly exclaimed, in characteristic language, "Remove that woman, who brings here the license of camps."
Napoleon remained in the school at Brienne for five years, from 1779 till 1784. His vacations were usually spent in Corsica. He was enthusiastically attached to his native island, and enjoyed exceedingly rambling over its mountains, and through its valleys, and listening at humble firesides to those traditions of violence and crime with which every peasant was familiar. He was a great admirer of Paoli, the friend of his father and the hero of Corsica. At Brienne the students were invited to dine, by turns, with the principal of the school. One day when Napoleon was at the table, one of the professors, knowing his young pupil's admiration for Paoli, spoke disrespectfully of the distinguished general, that he might tease the sensitive lad. Napoleon promptly and energetically replied, "Paoli, sir, was a great man! He loved his country; and I never shall forgive my father, for consenting to the union of Corsica with France. He ought to have followed Paoli's fortunes and to have fallen with him."
Paoli, who upon the conquest of Corsica had fled to England, was afterward permitted to return to his native island. Napoleon, though in years but a boy, was, in mind a full-grown man. He sought the acquaintance of Paoli, and they became intimate friends. The veteran general and the manly boy took many excursions together over the island; and Paoli pointed out to his intensely-interested companion, the fields where sanguinary battles had been fought, and the positions which the little army of Corsicans had occupied in the struggle for independence. The energy and decision of character displayed by Napoleon produced such an impression upon the mind of this illustrious man, that he at one time exclaimed, "Oh, Napoleon! you do not at all resemble the moderns. You belong only to the heroes of Plutarch."
Pichegru, who afterward became so celebrated as the conqueror of Holland and who came to so melancholy a death, was a member of the school at Brienne at the same time with Napoleon. Being several years older than the young Corsican, he instructed him in mathematics. The commanding talents and firm character of his pupil deeply impressed the mind of Pichegru. Many years after, when Napoleon was rising rapidly to power, the Bourbons proposed to Pichegru, who had espoused the royalist cause, to sound Napoleon and ascertain if he could be purchased to advocate their claims. "It will be but lost time to attempt it," said Pichegru: "I knew him in his youth. His character is inflexible. He has taken his side, and he will not change it."
One of the ladies of Brienne, occasionally invited some of the school-boys to sup with her at her chateau. Napoleon was once passing the evening with this lady, and, in the course of conversation, she remarked, "Turenne was certainly a very great man; but I should have liked him better had he not burned the Palatinate." "What signifies that," was Napoleon's characteristic remark, "if the burning was necessary to the object he had in view?"1 This sentiment, uttered in childhood, is a key to the character of Napoleon. It was his great moral defect. To attain an end which he deemed important, he would ride over every obstacle. He was not a cruel man. He was not a malignant man. It was his great ambition to make himself illustrious by making France the most powerful, enlightened, and happy empire upon the surface of the globe. If, to attain this end, it was necessary to sacrifice a million of lives, he would not shrink from the sacrifice. Had he been educated in the school of Christianity, he might have learned that the end will not sanctify the means. Napoleon was not a Christian.
His character for integrity and honor ever stood very high. At Brienne he was a great favorite with the younger boys, whose rights he defended against the invasions of the older. The indignation which Napoleon felt at this time, in view of the arrogance of the young nobility, produced an impression upon his character, the traces of which never passed away. When his alliance with the royal house of Austria was proposed, the Emperor Francis, whom Napoleon very irreverently called "an old granny,"2 was extremely anxious to prove the illustrious descent of his prospective son-in-law.
He accordingly employed many persons to make researches among the records of genealogy, to trace out the grandeur of his ancestral line. Napoleon refused to have the account published, remarking, "I had rather be the descendant of an honest man than of any petty tyrant of Italy. I wish my nobility to commence with myself, and to derive all my titles from the French people. I am the Rodolph of Hapsburg of my family. My patent of nobility dates from the battle of Montenotte."3
Upon the occasion of this marriage, the Pope, in order to render the pedigree of Napoleon more illustrious, proposed the canonization of a poor monk, by the name of Bonaparte, who for centuries had been quietly reposing in his grave. "Holy Father!" exclaimed Napoleon, "I beseech you, spare me the ridicule of that step. You being in my power, all the world will say that I forced you to create a saint out of my family." To some remonstrances which were made against this marriage Napoleon coolly replied, "I certainly should not enter into this alliance, if I were not aware of the origin of Maria Louise being equally as noble as my own."
Still Napoleon was by no means regardless of that mysterious influence which illustrious descent invariably exerts over the human mind. Through his life one can trace the struggles of those conflicting sentiments. The marshals of France, and the distinguished generals who surrounded his throne, were raised from the rank and file of the army, by their own merit; but he divorced his faithful Josephine, and married a daughter of the Cæsars, that by an illustrious alliance he might avail himself of this universal and innate prejudice. No power of reasoning can induce one to look with the same interest upon the child of Cæsar and the child of the beggar.
Near the close of Napoleon's career, while Europe in arms was crowding upon him, the Emperor found himself in desperate and hopeless conflict on that very plain at Brienne, where in childhood he had reared his fortification of snow. He sought an interview with the old woman, whom he had ejected from the theatre, and from whom he had often purchased milk and fruit.
"Do you remember a boy by the name of Bonaparte," inquired Napoleon, "who formerly attended this school?" "Yes! very well," was the answer. "Did he always pay you for what he bought?" "Yes;" replied the old woman, "and he often compelled the other boys to pay, when they wished to defraud me." "Perhaps he may have forgotten a few sous," said Napoleon, "and here is a purse of gold to discharge any outstanding debt which may remain between us." At this same time he pointed out to his companion a tree, under which, with unbounded delight, he read, when a boy, Jerusalem Delivered, and where, in the warm summer evenings, with indescribable luxury of emotion, he listened to the tolling of the bells on the distant village-church spires. To such impressions his sensibilities were peculiarly alive. The monarch then turned away sadly from these reminiscenses of childhood, to plunge, seeking death, into the smoke and the carnage of his last and despairing conflicts.
It was a noble trait in the character of Napoleon, that in his day of power he so generously remembered even the casual acquaintances of his early years. He ever wrote an exceedingly illegible hand, as his impetuous and restless spirit was such that he could not drive his pen with sufficient rapidity over his paper. The poor writing-master at Brienne was in utter despair, and could do nothing with his pupil. Years after, Napoleon was sitting one day with Josephine, in his cabinet at St. Cloud, when a poor man, with threadbare coat, was ushered into his presence. Trembling before his former pupil, he announced himself as the writing-master of Brienne, and solicited a pension from the Emperor. Napoleon affected anger, and said, "Yes, you were my writing-master, were you? and a pretty chirographist you made of me, too. Ask Josephine, there,