likewise preserved a supreme magistracy of twelve nobles, in whom the government of the country was vested; and to this high tribunal Charles Buonaparte was attached as assessor, a place preparatory to his elevation into the Council. This Charles was the only son of Joseph Buonaparte, the eldest of three brothers, the two other of whom died without male issue. He inherited the family property, which was not very considerable, consisting of a house in Ajaccio, and a small estate on the shore of the island, where a dilapidated villa served as a summer residence. As is usual in southern climates, he married at the early age of nineteen, and won for his wife from numerous competitors the reigning beauty of the world of Corsica, the young Letitia Ramolino, who was remarkable not only for her personal charms, but also for the courage and fortitude of her character. In 1779 the noblesse elected him the deputy of their order to the court of Versailles, and in this capacity he was obliged to make frequent journeys into France, which, notwithstanding the liberal grants he received from the government of Louis XVI., appear to have reduced his fortune within the narrowest limits; for upon his death at Montpellier in 1785, whither he had repaired in the vain hope of being relieved from the malady which afflicted him-cancer in the stomach; a disease often hereditary in families—he left his widow in very straitened circumstances, and dependent in a great measure for the support and education of her children on their uncle the Archdeacon Lucien, who was head of the chapter of Ajaccio, and who cheerfully undertook to perform the part of father to the bereaved orphans.

These were no fewer than eight in number, the survivors of thirteen whom the fruitful Letitia had borne to her husband, although, at the time of his death, she had not completed her thirty-fifth year. Five were sons, and three daughters, the eldest of whom, Joseph, was seventeen years old, and the youngest, Jerome, only two months. The second son was Napoleon, the third Lucien, and the fourth Louis; the three daughters were Marianna Eliza, Pauline, and Caroline, also called Annonciada, who was nearly three years old at the death of her father. In his visits to France, Charles Buonaparte had taken with him his two eldest sons for the benefit of their education; Joseph being placed in a school at Autun, with the view of following the ecclesiastical profession under the patronage of Marboeuf, Archbishop of Lyons, brother of the governor of Corsica, who, as a friend of the family, was on his part instrumental in procuring the introduction of Napoleon into the military school of Brienne, whence he was afterwards removed to that of Paris. This second son was always a favourite with his father, who delighted to regard him as the future hero of his race; and the young Napoleon himself was fondly attached to an indulgent parent, whose loss he long deplored, regretting, above all, that the mournful consolation of attending his deathbed had been denied to him, which fell, on the contrary, to the lot of Joseph and the Abbé Fesch, a half-brother of their mother. In the succeeding years, Lucien likewise received his education at Brienne and at Aix in Provence; and when the mighty era of 1789 dawned, all the sons were assembled in Corsica, where the cause of the Revolution was from the first embraced by its inhabitants with the greatest ardour. The young Buonapartes were among its most eager partisans; and Lucien, in particular, who was only sixteen years of age, distinguished himself as an orator in the popular clubs of the island. Joseph had abjured the priestly calling, and having entered into the civil service of the department, was enabled to assist his mother in the

management and maintenance of the family. Napoleon held a commission from the king of France as a lieutenant of artillery, and was remarkable chiefly for his love of solitude and the laborious studies in which he passed his time. Already he had ceased to look upon Corsica as his country; its incorporation with France opened to him a wider theatre for the play of his aspiring spirit, and he readily merged paternal patriotism in the greater call to partake the dangers and the glories of the new competition about to arise from the crash of feudalism.

It was very different with the old patriot of the island-Paoli. As a venerated champion of freedom, the National Assembly of France had invited him to return from his long exile in England; and in 1792 he reappeared among his countrymen with all the lustre of a name endeared to them by his services and his sufferings. He was hailed with a boundless enthusiasm, especially by the mountaineers, who revered him as their tutelary chief; but even in Ajaccio he was received with triumph, and Lucien Buonaparte records with exultation that he pronounced a discourse before him which drew tears from the honoured veteran by its touching pathos. So lively, indeed, was the impression made upon him by this fervent orator, that Paoli took him to his residence of Rostino, and kept him near his person for many months, during which he sought to instil into the mind of his pupil, as the latter himself relates with grief, that England was the only land of real freedom, and the British constitution far superior to any the legislators of France were likely to invent. Notwithstanding his veneration for the patriotic sage, Lucien was too zealous for the credit of France and the virtue of republicanism to admit the force of this doctrine, and he began to entertain suspicions of the orthodoxy of Paoli in the precepts of the revolutionary code. This first alarm soon mounted into certainty when the execution of Louis XVI. aroused the indignation of the virtuous patriot, and stirred him to an open denunciation of the sanguinary monsters who were disgracing the sacred cause of liberty. Paoli declared he would no longer belong to France, neither he nor his brave mountaineers; and he called upon the sons of his old companion in the war of independence, Charles Buonaparte, to join him in a fresh struggle against a more terrible tyranny than had ever yet oppressed the island. But to this appeal the Buonapartes were deaf, for their ambition lay in the very opposite direction; and Paoli having summoned around him an army of mountaineers, prepared to march on Ajaccio, which was the only town that had refused, at his command, to lower the tricolour flag. His rage was principally directed against the Buonapartes, if we are to credit Lucien, and he ordered them to be taken dead or alive. Joseph and Napoleon were both absent at this critical moment; Lucien, too, had proceeded to France as the head of a deputation to crave succours from the Jacobins; but the heroic Letitia, who had in earlier days fought by the side of her husband, was fully equal to the task of providing for the safety of her numerous progeny. In the dead of night she was aroused by intelligence of the approach of her exasperated enemy, who was intent, above all, to seize her person as a hostage for the submission of her sons; and escorted by a village chieftain named Costa, she hastened from the city to seek refuge in the fastnesses of the hills and forests. Amidst a small band of faithful followers she marched with her young children under the shade of darkness, and before daylight, reached a secluded spot on the seashore, whence from an elevation she could see her house in flames. Un

daunted by the sad spectacle, she exclaimed, 'Never mind; we will build it up again much better: Vive la France!' After a concealment of two days and nights in the recesses of the woods, the fugitives were at length gladdened by the sight of a French frigate, on board of which were Joseph and Napoleon with the deputies of the Convention on mission to Corsica. In this vessel the whole party at once embarked, and as no hope remained of finding security in Corsica, it was straightway steered for France. Marseilles was its port of destination, and there it accordingly landed the family of exiles, destitute of every vestige of property, but unbroken, it would seem, in courage and health. Madame Buonaparte had occasion for the exercise of all her fortitude in these trying circumstances, for she was reduced to almost extreme poverty, and was fain to receive with thankfulness the rations of bread distributed by the municipality to refugee patriots. Joseph speedily received an appointment as a commissary of war; and he and Napoleon contributed to the support of the family from their scanty allowances; but during the first years of their residence in France, these obscure exiles, who even spoke the language of their adopted country with difficulty, suffered all the inconveniences of a sordid penury.

It was in the early period of the Reign of Terror that Letitia Buonaparte and her children took up their abode in France, which was a prey to all the horrors of civil war, as well as to the dangers of a foreign invasion. The principal cities of the Republic had revolted against the central authority of Paris and the bloody domination of the Jacobins, and among the rest Marseilles was distinguished in the great federalist movement. But the reduction of Lyons, and the terrible vengeance inflicted on it, restored the supremacy of the redoubtable Committee of Public Safety, which consolidated its rule with a relentless fury unparalleled in the annals of barbarism. Many thousands of the inhabitants of Marseilles fled in absolute terror on the approach of the Jacobin forces, and sought protection in Toulon, which had not only cast off the yoke of the Convention, but called in the aid of the British and Spanish fleets to uphold the desperate cause of royalty. In this general flight, however, the Buonapartes did not participate, since they in truth belonged to the triumphant faction. This was a connection which may principally be ascribed to Lucien, who was by far the most hot-headed of the family, and who, by dint of inflammatory harangues, had recommended himself to an administrative appointment at St Maximin, a small town a few leagues distant from Marseilles. Here he assumed the name of Brutus, and in conjunction with a renegade monk, who styled himself Epaminondas, exercised a petty dictatorship, filling the prisons with unfortunate victims, as suspected royalists and aristocrats. But it is his boast that, with unlimited power in his hands, and at so youthful an age, he shed no blood, notwithstanding the influence of the examples around him. He even opposed the mandate of the commissioners, sent by the Convention to restore its authority at Marseilles, for the removal of his prisoners to be tried or rather guillotined at Orange an act of boldness which exposed him to the anger of the commissioners, who were Barras and Fréron, but which failed to save him from the fatal imputation of being a Terrorist when the day of reaction arrived. Yet in this revolutionary career of his Lucien was of advantage to the fortunes of the family, since Joseph, who continued to reside at Marseilles with his mother, was of too mild and unobtrusive a character to gain credit with the powers of Jacobinism, whilst Napoleon was as yet an unknown subal

tern, jostling among the crowd of rivals for preferment. In the person of the Abbé Fesch, indeed, who had accompanied his sister in her exile, the positive danger was incurred of harbouring a priest, then the most obnoxious of all delinquents to popular wrath. However, when the portents of the storm were gathering, the abbé prudently discarded his clerical robe, and sought a safer calling as a keeper of stores in the army of General Montesquiou, who, in the autumn of 1793, overran the country of Savoy. It was at a later period of the same year that an event occurred which laid the foundation of mighty changes, involving not only the Corsican refugees in their effects, but deranging the destinies of all the nations of Christendom.

Toulon alone of all the revolted cities still held out against the victorious banner of the Republic. The energies of the government were directed against it with the greater virulence that the flag of England, the most hated of the foes of France, floated on its traitorous ramparts. General Carteaux was despatched to undertake the siege at the head of a large force, amounting to 30,000 men of all arms; but carrying on the operations with less vigour than suited the impatience of the sovereign Committee, he was displaced, and succeeded by Dugommier, who had been provided by the celebrated Carnot with a detailed plan for his guidance in the reduction of the place. But during the temporary absence of the senior officer in command, and in a happy moment of inspiration, Dugommier confided the charge of the artillery to the young engineer of Ajaccio, who had been recently promoted to a colonelcy of brigade, and who recommended a plan of operations so much more feasible than the one dictated by the Committee, that it was at once adopted, with the preliminary sanction, nevertheless, of the Representatives on mission with the army. This plan consisted in carrying the more distant forts which commanded the harbour of Toulon, instead of pursuing the attack against the main body of the place, and which promised the advantage of either insuring the destruction of the hostile fleet, or of compelling it hastily to remove out of range of the guns. In either case, the reduction of Toulon was certain and immediate without much waste of blood, since it would be no longer tenable by the foreign garrison, which constituted the chief means of its defence. Being finally determined upon, Napoleon applied himself to its execution with all the ardour which the hope of success could kindle in a spirit fired with genius and ambition; and such was his exercise of scientific skill, combined with a personal heroism remarkable even in those days of matchless daring, that on the eighteenth day from unmasking his batteries, he was enabled to carry by assault the fort called Little Gibraltar, the possession of which gave the republican arms that decisive predominance he had contemplated. Lord Hood immediately evacuated the harbour with his ships; the garrison prepared for a gradual abandonment of the defensive posts; the wretched inhabitants flocked to the quays, imploring protection from their fugitive allies; the galley-slaves burst from their chains, and commenced a general plunder; the arsenal was set on fire, and the huge vessels of war roared with the flames of devastation; the raging conquerors rushed into the devoted city, and then was consummated this scene of horror which all description must ever fail to portray.

Such was the achievement by which Napoleon Buonaparte first emerged in renown from among that swarm of youthful heroes who in this famous

era had flung themselves into the service of France. On this early stage of his career he met two young soldiers, still struggling against the frowns of fortune, whom he attached to him by the notice he took of their cool intrepidity in the midst of danger. These were Junot and Duroc, who retained for him ever afterwards an affection and admiration which was wholly independent of his future grandeur. The Representatives of the Convention and Dugommier freely acknowledged the value of Napoleon's services; and the Committee of Public Safety, which rewarded and punished with equal promptitude, at once elevated him to the rank of general of brigade. He was henceforth attached to the army of the Alps under Dumorbion, who, being old, and diffident of himself, willingly relinquished to his more vigorous lieutenant the conduct of a campaign which was beset with unusual difficulties, from the rugged nature of the country and the absolute destitution of the soldiers. To this army were delegated the same commissioners who had superintended the siege of Toulon, all men of note and influence in the Republic at the time, and two of whom at least manifested a perfect appreciation of the merits of the new commandant of artillery. One of these was the younger Robespierre, brother of the chief dictator among the ruling decemvirs; and the other was Barras, who affected a military knowledge, and was fresh from the massacres of Marseilles: the third commissioner was Salicetti, himself a Corsican, but nurturing a bitter envy against his rising countryman. The first, indeed, formed with Napoleon an intimacy which had nearly led to momentous consequences. Although the atrocities of the Jacobins were extremely revolting to him— for his temperament was utterly averse to their horrible system of government-Napoleon was not insensible to the advantage of cultivating a friendship with the brother of their most potential leader, whose favour was the surest avenue to high distinction. Moreover, the younger Robespierre was really estimable for many virtues, and laboured to convince him that Maximilian was far from being the bloody tyrant his seeming actions would represent him. It is not singular, therefore, that Napoleon turned his eyes with some predilection towards one so capable of promoting his interests, and whom he might suppose an involuntary agent of bloodshed, or at least not so vulgar and complete a villain as some of his colleagues. Thus he became connected with Robespierre, who entertained the idea of conferring on him the command of the Parisian sans-culottes in lieu of the miserable Henriot, whose blustering incompetence he had the sagacity to detect. The proposition was even made to him by the younger brother, who repeatedly urged him to accompany him to Paris, whither he was recalled by the perils beginning to threaten the continuance of the existing dominion. But Napoleon resolutely resisted all such solicitations, for however Robespierre might have imposed on him by those hypocritical professions of moderation which he essayed in the latter days of his hideous reign, he could not consent to wear the actual livery of such a master, whose character of sternness and implacability he was not anxious to encounter too closely. 'There is no honourable place for me but the army at present; the time is not yet come, but it will arrive when I shall command at Paris,' are the prophetic words which Lucien does not hesitate to put into his mouth on this occasion. Yet notwithstanding his refusal to identify himself with Robespierre, he was involved in the downfall of that malignant monster; and after the glorious 9th of Thermidor (27th of July 1794), he was arrested as an adherent and