书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
19097600000889

第889章

For example, but little more than one-half of the letters from Napoleon to Bigot de Préameneu on ecclesiastical matters have been published; many of these omitted letters, all important and characteristic, may be found in "L'église romaine et le Premier Empire," by M. d'Haussonville. The above-mentioned savant estimates the number of important letters not yet published at 2,000.

[3] "Mémorial de Sainte Héléne," by Las Casas (May 29, 1816).---"In Corsica, Paoli, on a horseback excursion, explained the positions to him, the places where liberty found resistance or triumphed.

Estimating the character of Napoleon by what he saw of it through personal observation, Paoli said to him, "Oh, Napoleon, there is nothing modern in you, you belong wholly to Plutarch!"-- Antonomarchi, "Mémoires," Oct. 25, 1819. The same account, slightly different, is there given: "Oh. Napoleon," said Paoli to me, "you do not belong to this century; you talk like one of Plutarch's characters. Courage, you will take flight yet!"[4] De Ségur, "Histoire et Mémoires," I., 150. (Narrative by Pontécoulant, member of the committee in the war, June, 1795.) "Boissy d'Anglas told him that he had seen the evening before a little Italian, pale, slender, and puny, but singularly audacious in his views and in the vigor of his expressions. - The next day, Bonaparte calls on Pontécou1ant, "Attitude rigid through a morbid pride, poor exterior, long visage, hollow and bronzed. . . . He is just from the army and talks like one who knows what he is talking about."[5] Coston, "Biographie des premières années de Napoléon Buonaparte,"2 vols. (1840), passim. - Yung, " Bonaparte et son Temps," I., 300, 302. (Pièces généalogiques.) - King Joseph, "Mémoires," I., 109, 111.

(On the various branches and distinguished men of the Bonaparte family.) - Miot de Melito, "Mémoires," II., 30. (Documents on the Bonaparte family, collected on the spot by the author in 1801.)[6] "Mémorial," May 6, 1816. - Miot de Melito, II., 30. (On the Bonapartes of San Miniato): "The last offshoot of this branch was a canon then still living in this same town of San Miniato, and visited by Bonaparte in the year IV, when he came to Florence."[7] "Correspondance de l'Empereur Napoléon I." (Letter of Bonaparte, Sept.29, 1797, in relation to Italy): "A people at bottom inimical to the French through the prejudices, character, and customs of centuries."[8] Miot de Melito, I., 126, (1796): "Florence, for two centuries and a half, had lost that antique energy which, in the stormy times of the Republic, distinguished this city. Indolence was the dominant spirit of all classes. . . Almost everywhere I saw only men lulled to rest by the charms of the most exquisite climate, occupied solely with the details of a monotonous existence, and tranquilly vegetating under its beneficent sky." - (On Milan, in 1796, cf. Stendhal, introduction to the "Chartreuse de Parme.")[9] "Miot de Melito, I., 131: "Having just left one of the most civilized cities in Italy, it was not without some emotion that Ifound myself suddenly transported to a country (Corsica) which, in its savage aspect, its rugged mountains, and its inhabitants uniformly dressed in coarse brown cloth, contrasted so strongly with the rich and smiling landscape of Tuscany, and with the comfort, I should almost say elegance, of costume worn by the happy cultivators of that fertile soil."[10] Miot de Melito, II., 30: "Of a not very important family of Sartène." - II., 143. (On the canton of Sartène and the Vendettas of 1796). - Coston, I., 4: "The family of Madame Laetitia, sprung from the counts of Cotalto, came originally from Italy."[11] His father, Charles Bonaparte, weak and even frivolous, "too fond of pleasure to care about his children," and to see to his affairs, tolerably learned and an indifferent head of a family, died at the age of thirty-nine of a cancer in the stomach, which seems to be the only bequest he made to his son Napoleon. - His mother, on the contrary, serious, authoritative, the true head of a family, was, said Napoleon, "hard in her affections she punished and rewarded without distinction, good or bad; she made us all feel it." - On becoming head of the household, "she was too parsimonious-even ridiculously so.

This was due to excess of foresight on her part; she had known want, and her terrible sufferings were never out of her mind. . . .

Paoli had tried persuasion with her before resorting to force. . .

. Madame replied heroically, as a Cornelia would have done. . . .

From 12 to 15,000 peasants poured down from the mountains of Ajaccio;our house was pillaged and burnt, our vines destroyed, and our flocks.

. . . In other respects, this woman, from whom it would have been so difficult to extract five francs, would have given up everything to secure my return from Elba, and after Waterloo she offered me all she possessed to restore my affairs." (" Mémorial," May 29, 1816, and "Mémoires d'Antonomarchi," Nov. 18, 1819. - On the ideas and ways of Bonaparte's mother, read her "Conversation" in "Journal et Mémoires," vol. IV., by Stanislas Girardin.) Duchesse d'Abrantès, "Mémoires," II., 318, 369. "Avaricious out of all reason except on a few grave occasions. . . . No knowledge whatever of the usages of society. . . . very ignorant, not alone of our literature, but of her own." - Stendhal, "Vie de Napoleon": "The character of her son is to be explained by the perfectly Italian character of Madame Laetitia."[12] The French conquest is effected by armed force between July 30, 1768, and May 22, 1769. The Bonaparte family submitted May 23, 1769, and Napoleon was born on the following 15th of August.

[13] Antonomarchi, "Mémoires," October 4, 1819. "Mémorial," May 29, 1816.