Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 15, August, 1851

The winter of 1784 was one of unusual severity. Large quantities of snow fell, which so completely blocked up the walks, that the students at Brienne could find but little amusement without doors. Napoleon proposed, that to beguile the weary hours, they should erect an extensive fortification of snow, with intrenchments and bastions, parapets, ravelins, and horn-works. He had studied the science of fortification with the utmost diligence, and, under his superintendence the works were conceived and executed according to the strictest rules of art. The power of his mind now displayed itself. No one thought of questioning the authority of Napoleon. He planned and directed while a hundred busy hands, with unquestioning alacrity, obeyed his will. The works rapidly rose, and in such perfection of science, as to attract crowds of the inhabitants of Brienne for their inspection. Napoleon divided the school into two armies, one being intrusted with the defense of the works, while the other composed the host of the besiegers. He took upon himself the command of both bodies, now heading the besiegers in the desperate assault, and now animating the besieged to an equally vigorous defense. For several weeks this mimic warfare continued, during which time many severe wounds were received on each side. In the heat of the battle, when the bullets of snow were flying thick and fast, one of the subordinate officers, venturing to disobey the commands of his general, Napoleon felled him to the earth, inflicting a wound which left a scar for life.

In justice to Napoleon it must be related that when he had attained the highest pitch of grandeur, this unfortunate school-boy, who had thus experienced the rigor of Napoleon's military discipline, sought to obtain an audience with the Emperor. Calamities had darkened the path of the unfortunate man, and he was in poverty and obscurity. 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, what she thinks of my handwriting!" The Empress, with that amiable tact, which made her the most lovely of women, smilingly replied, "I assure you, sir, his letters are perfectly delightful." The Emperor laughed cordially at the well-timed compliment, and made the poor old man comfortable for the rest of his days.

In the days of his prosperity, amidst all the cares of empire, Napoleon remembered the poor Corsican woman, who was the kind nurse of his infancy, and settled upon her a pension of two hundred dollars a year. Though far advanced in life, the good woman was determined to see her little nursling, in the glory of whose exaltation her heart so abundantly shared. With this object in view she made a journey to Paris. The Emperor received her most kindly, and transported the happy woman home again with her pension doubled.

In one of Napoleon's composition exercises at Brienne, he gave rather free utterance to his republican sentiments, and condemned the conduct of the royal family. The professor of rhetoric rebuked the young republican severely for the offensive passage, and to add to the severity of the rebuke, compelled him to throw the paper into the fire. Long afterward, the professor was commanded to attend a levee of the First Consul to receive Napoleon's younger brother Jerome as a pupil. Napoleon received him with great kindness, but at the close of the business, very good-humoredly reminded him that times were very considerably changed since the burning of that paper.

Napoleon remained in the school of Brienne for five years, from 1779 till 1784. He had just entered his fifteenth year, when he was promoted to the military school at Paris. Annually, three of the best scholars, from each of the twelve provincial military schools of France, were promoted to the military school at Paris. This promotion, at the earliest possible period in which his age would allow his admission, shows the high rank, as a scholar, which Napoleon sustained. The records of the Minister of War contain the following interesting entry:

"State of the king's scholars eligible to enter into service, or to pass to the school at Paris. Monsieur de Bonaparte (Napoleon), born 15th August, 1769; in height five feet six and a half inches; has finished his fourth season; of a good constitution, health excellent, character mild, honest, and grateful; conduct exemplary; has always distinguished himself by application to mathematics; understands history and geography tolerably well; is indifferently skilled in merely ornamental studies, and in Latin, in which he has only finished his fourth course; would make an excellent sailor; deserves to be passed to the school at Paris."

The military school at Paris, which Napoleon now entered, was furnished with all the appliances of aristocratic luxury. It had been founded for the sons of the nobility, who had been accustomed to every indulgence. Each of the three hundred young men assembled in this school had a servant to groom his horse, to polish his weapons, to brush his boots, and to perform all other necessary menial services. The cadet reposed on a luxurious bed, and was fed with sumptuous viands. There are few lads of fifteen who would not have been delighted with the dignity, the ease, and the independence of this style of living. Napoleon, however, immediately saw that this was by no means the training requisite to prepare officers for the toils and the hardships of war. He addressed an energetic memorial to the governor, urging the banishment of this effeminacy and voluptuousness from the military school. He argued that the students should learn to groom their own horses, to clean their armor, and to perform all those services, and to inure themselves to those privations which would prepare them for the exposure and the toils of actual service. No incident in the childhood or in the life of Napoleon shows more decisively than this his energetic, self-reliant, commanding character. The wisdom, the fortitude, and the foresight, not only of mature years, but of the mature years of the most powerful intellect, were here exhibited. The military school which he afterward established at Fontainebleau, and which obtained such world-wide celebrity, was founded upon the model of this youthful memorial. And one distinguishing cause of the extraordinary popularity which Napoleon afterward secured, was to be found in the fact, that through life he called upon no one to encounter perils, or to endure hardships which he was not perfectly ready himself to encounter or to endure.

At Paris the elevation of his character, his untiring devotion to study, his peculiar conversational energy, and the almost boundless information he had acquired, attracted much attention. His solitary and recluse habits, and his total want of sympathy with most of his fellow students in their idleness, and in their frivolous amusements, rendered him far from popular with the multitude. His great superiority was, however, universally recognized. He pressed on in his studies with as much vehemence as if he had been forewarned of the extraordinary career before him, and that but a few months were left in which to garner up those stores of knowledge with which he was to remodel the institutions of Europe, and almost change the face of the world.

About this time he was at Marseilles on some day of public festivity. A large party of young gentlemen and ladies were amusing themselves with dancing. Napoleon was rallied upon his want of gallantry in declining to participate in the amusements of the evening. He replied, "It is not by playing and dancing that a man is to be formed." Indeed he never, from childhood, took any pleasure in fashionable dissipation. He had not a very high opinion of men or women in general. He was perfectly willing to provide amusements which he thought adapted to the capacities of the masculine and feminine minions flitting about the court; but his own expanded mind was so engrossed with vast projects of utility and renown, that he found no moments to spare in cards and billiards, and he was at the furthest possible remove from what may be called a lady's man.

On one occasion a mathematical problem of great difficulty having been proposed to the class, Napoleon, in order to solve it, secluded himself in his room for seventy-two hours; and he solved the problem. This extraordinary faculty of intense and continuous exertion both of mind and body, was his distinguishing characteristic through life. Napoleon did not blunder into renown. His triumphs were not casualties; his achievements were not accidents; his grand conceptions were not the brilliant flashes of unthinking and unpremeditated genius. Never did man prepare the way for greatness by more untiring devotion to the acquisition of all useful knowledge, and to the attainment of the highest possible degree of mental discipline. That he possessed native powers of mind, of extraordinary vigor it is true; but those powers were expanded and energized by Herculean study. His mighty genius impelled to the sacrifice of every indulgence, and to sleepless toil.

The vigor of Napoleon's mind, so conspicuous in conversation, was equally remarkable in his exercises in composition. His professor of Belles-Lettres remarked that Napoleon's amplifications ever reminded him of "flaming missiles ejected from a volcano." While in the military school at Paris the Abbé Raynal became so forcibly impressed with his astonishing mental acquirements, and the extent of his capacities, that he frequently invited him, though Napoleon was then but a lad of sixteen, to breakfast at his table with other illustrious guests. His mind was at that time characterized by great logical accuracy, united with the most brilliant powers of masculine imagination. His conversation, laconic, graphic, oracular, arrested every mind. Had the vicissitudes of life so ordered his lot, he would undoubtedly have been as distinguished in the walks of literature and in the halls of science, as he became in the field and in the cabinet. That he was one of the profoundest of thinkers all admit; and his trumpet-toned proclamations resounded through Europe, rousing the army to almost a frenzy of enthusiasm, and electrifying alike the peasant and the prince. Napoleon had that comprehensive genius which would have been pre-eminent in any pursuit to which he had devoted the energies of his mind. Great as were his military victories, they were by no means the greatest of his achievements.

In September, 1785, Napoleon, then but sixteen years of age, was examined to receive an appointment in the army. The mathematical branch of the examination was conducted by the celebrated La Place. Napoleon passed the ordeal triumphantly. In history he had made very extensive attainments. His proclamations, his public addresses, his private conferences with his ministers in his cabinet, all attest the philosophical discrimination with which he had pondered the records of the past, and had studied the causes of the rise and fall of empires. At the close of his examination in history, the historical professor, Monsieur Keruglion, wrote opposite to the signature of Napoleon, "A Corsican by character and by birth. This young man will distinguish himself in the world if favored by fortune." This professor was very strongly attached to his brilliant pupil. He often invited him to dinner, and cultivated his confidence. Napoleon in after years did not forget this kindness, and many years after, upon the death of the professor, settled a very handsome pension upon his widow. Napoleon, as the result of this examination, was appointed second lieutenant in a regiment of artillery. He was exceedingly gratified in becoming thus early in life an officer in the army. To a boy of sixteen it must have appeared the attainment of a very high degree of human grandeur.

That evening, arrayed in his new uniform, with epaulets and the enormous boots which at that time were worn by the artillery, in an exuberant glow of spirits, he called upon a female friend, Mademoiselle Permon, who afterward became Duchess of Abrantes, and who was regarded as one of the most brilliant wits of the imperial court. A younger sister of this lady, who had just returned from a boarding-school, was so much struck with the comical appearance of Napoleon, whose feminine proportions so little accorded with this military costume, that she burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, declaring that he resembled nothing so much as "Puss in Boots." The raillery was too just not to be felt. Napoleon struggled against his sense of mortification, and soon regained his accustomed equanimity. A few days after, to prove that he cherished no rancorous recollection of the occurrence, he presented the mirthful maiden with an elegantly bound copy of Puss in Boots.

Napoleon soon, exulting in his new commission, repaired to Valence to join his regiment. His excessive devotion to study had impeded the full development of his physical frame. Though exceedingly thin and fragile in figure, there was a girlish gracefulness and beauty in his form; and his noble brow and piercing eye attracted attention and commanded respect. One of the most distinguished ladies of the place, Madame du Colombier, became much interested in the young lieutenant, and he was frequently invited to her house. He was there introduced to much intelligent and genteel society. In after life he frequently spoke with gratitude of the advantages he derived from this early introduction to refined and polished associates. Napoleon formed a strong attachment for a daughter of Madame du Colombier, a young lady of about his own age and possessed of many accomplishments. They frequently enjoyed morning and evening rambles through the pleasant walks in the environs of Valence. Napoleon subsequently speaking of this youthful attachment said, "We were the most innocent creatures imaginable. We contrived short interviews together. I well remember one which took place, on a midsummer's morning, just as the light began to dawn. It will scarcely be credited that all our felicity consisted in eating cherries together." The vicissitudes of life soon separated these young friends from each other, and they met not again for ten years. Napoleon, then Emperor of France, was, with a magnificent retinue, passing through Lyons, when this young lady, who had since been married, and who had encountered many misfortunes, with some difficulty gained access to him, environed as he was with all the etiquette of royalty. Napoleon instantly recognized his former friend and inquired minutely respecting all her joys and griefs. He immediately assigned to her husband a post which secured for him an ample competence, and conferred upon her the situation of a maid of honor to one of his sisters.

From Valence Napoleon went to Lyons, having been ordered, with his regiment, to that place in consequence of some disturbances which had broken out there. His pay as lieutenant was quite inadequate to support him in the rank of a gentleman. His widowed mother, with six children younger than Napoleon, who was then but seventeen years of age, was quite unable to supply him with funds. This pecuniary embarrassment often exposed the high-spirited young officer to the keenest mortification. It did not, however, in the slightest degree, impair his energies or weaken his confidence in that peculiar consciousness, which from childhood he had cherished, that he was endowed with extraordinary powers, and that he was born to an exalted destiny. He secluded himself from his brother officers, and, keeping aloof from all the haunts of amusement and dissipation, cloistered himself in his study, and with indefatigable energy devoted himself anew to the acquisition of knowledge, laying up those inexhaustible stores of information and gaining that mental discipline which proved of such incalculable advantage to him in the brilliant career upon which he subsequently entered.