PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.

“Nature might stand up,

And say to all the world, this was a man!

His desert speaks loud, and I should wrong it,

To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,

When it deserves with characters of brass

A forted residence, ’gainst the tooth of time,

And razure of oblivion.”—Shakspeare.

It will hardly be controverted, that the outlines of the future man are formed in the nursery; if the superintending female be intellectual, the infant will, generally speaking, rise above the common level. The first lessons imbibed by a child are frequently the foundation of his conduct through life; they commonly supply the germ which is either to ripen into a useful harvest, or to choke the ground with noxious and debilitating weeds. There is something so sweet, so soothing, so irresistible in the monitions of a mother, that they make impressions which are indelible, which “grow with our growth, strengthen with our strength,” and which generally give the tone to future character. Amidst the bustle of the world, we recur back to the scenes of our earliest home with inexpressible pleasure, recall the never-failing kindness, the unwearied anxiety, the lasting affection, of our maternal parent, with feelings of delight that beggar description; we dwell upon them with a holy enthusiasm, for which we cannot readily account; we cherish them as something so imperatively requisite to enjoyment, that to be deprived of them were to be reduced to the condition of a solitary outcast. This reminiscence cheers us in our misfortunes, gladdens us in our prosperity, clings to us through all the various changes of our existence, and never ceases to operate but in the silence of the grave.

Like Day, the accomplished author of “Sandford and Merton,” Napoleon Buonaparte was blessed with a mother who was a woman of strong understanding, with an enlarged mind; one who made the education of her children a primary object. It was always his pride to acknowledge the obligations he was under to her for the excellent rudiments which she instilled into his youth, to which he gratefully attributed his almost unprecedented success. The marked attention which he paid her, after he had attained to supreme power, was the best proof of his sincerity, at once honourable to his character, and a valuable example of filial affection and dutiful respect.

Few, if any, among the intelligent, will be found to dispute the towering and comprehensive genius of Napoleon Buonaparte the Corsican, for as Corsica had only been made a department of France some two months previous to his birth, he could hardly be called a Frenchman: poor, although of a good family; destitute of that powerful interest usually found so important to give efficiency to professional advancement, whatever rank he obtained was the result of his own gigantic acquirements: to his own indomitable spirit, to his unremitting perseverance, aided by his elastic and irrepressible energies, he was solely indebted for the exalted position he held in society: as such, his name must be prominently enrolled among the heroes of the world, and he will ever occupy a distinguished niche in the great Temple of Fame; seeing that his actions afford ample food for the pen of the historian.—To his poverty, however, he possibly owed his greatness, while the want of influential friends, by throwing him upon his own resources, might very probably be the proximate cause of his brilliant career. The life of such a being, so gifted, so remarkable, so astounding in his course, cannot but be highly interesting, while it will unquestionably offer a fruitful source for moral reflection; open a mine of useful information; which, if properly digested and rationally applied, cannot fail to become beneficial to ethics, and prove eminently instructive.

The family of Napoleon Buonaparte is of Italian origin, was located in that classic land, and during the middle ages was of some consequence, ranking among the gentry. Pending the unhappy dissensions between the two factions of the Guelphs and Gibellines, which for nearly two centuries ravaged Italy, and laid waste its verdant and productive plains, the branch from which he sprung, to avoid the evils of civil strife, removed to Corsica, a mountainous but fertile island, surrounded with beautiful coral rocks, containing a population of 175,000 souls, eminent for its numerous swarms of bees, which produce very superior honey, as well as remarkable for its metallic ores of copper, lead, silver, and iron; also for talc, porphyry, jasper, amianthus, emeralds, sapphires, and other precious stones; situated in the Mediterranean Sea, between 41° 20′, and 42° 38′ of north latitude, and between 8° 38′, and 9° 37′ of east longitude, lying in the neighbourhood of the island of Sardinia, from which it is separated on the south by the Strait of Bonifaccio. Its atmosphere is reckoned more salubrious than that of the latter; the current language is Italian.

Opposition to tyrannic sway would seem to have been, as it should be in all others, a distinguishing feature in the Buonaparte family. The sovereignty of the island of Corsica was vested in the Genoese republic, who sent over Governors for the administration of its public affairs; the injustice and rapacity of these functionaries knew no bounds; one after the other, they acted with shameless disregard of moral duty; exercised the most unbridled cruelty; condemned the islanders to an ignominious death without legal trial, and made the most grinding exactions upon their property: this oppressive conduct was severely felt by the Corsicans, and at last so roused the feelings of the natives, that in 1755, they revolted under the command of General Pascal Paoli, then a young warrior, only twenty-nine years of age. In this dilemma, their oppressors finding themselves inadequate to cope successfully with the insurgents, made a virtue of necessity, and ceded to France that which themselves were no longer in a capacity to retain: the result of the negociation was a civil war, which, notwithstanding the corrupting influence and lavish distribution of Genoese gold, backed by the murderous operations of French armaments, was carried on with undulating advantage for nearly fourteen years. These transfers of territory, together with their resident population, in like manner and with as little ceremony as the proprietor of an estate will make over to a purchaser a piece of land with its grazing herds, so commonly put in force by governments calling themselves legitimate, may, possibly be very statesman sort of performances, may very probably have called into activity superior diplomatic talents, in which great tact and deep finesse may have been displayed by the negociators; still, however, it will be more than doubtful if they be strictly in accordance with the principles of genuine liberty.—That convenient, hackneyed old term “expediency” may certainly be resorted to for the purpose of covering the transaction; but then the question will arise:—has it invariably occurred that, that which was deemed expedient was also just?

At the period of this struggle by the Corsicans for their independence, the father of Napoleon Buonaparte, whose christian name was Charles, resided at Ajaccio, a seaport town, where he practised as an advocate with considerable reputation: the lawyer ranged himself on the popular side: during the contest he contrived to unite love with war by marrying a young lady, whose maiden name was Letitiae Ramolina, alike eminent for her exquisite beauty and her intellectual endowments. His bride, who possessed a masculine understanding, and who was enthusiastic for the restoration of her country’s freedom, courageously joined her husband in the ranks, shared both in the fatigues and dangers of his mountain campaigns, enduring privations, sustaining toils, and encountering hazards, which nothing short of the noble motive for which they were borne could have reconciled to a delicate, intelligent, and lovely female in the bloom of youth. Liberty is said to be a mountain goddess;—whatever she may be, her dictates are of so fascinating a character, her service is so genial to the heart of man, that when battling in her cause, fear seems to have taken flight, his arm appears to be nerved with well-tempered steel, at once powerful and elastic: were it possible to prevent the adversaries to her invigorating doctrines from sowing dissensions among her votaries, to restrain her enemies from injuring her sacred rights by disturbing the harmony which should subsist among her defenders, thus weakening their prowess and paralyzing their efforts, no earthly power would be able to resist her animating impulse: all must bend before a shrine at whose altars alone true happiness is to be found. If the friends to rational freedom would only be unanimous, make simultaneous movements, and not suffer artful knaves to disunite and mislead them, vain would be the attempts of the whole tribe of despots with their fawning servile coadjutors to crush its infancy, oppose its progress, or prevent its maturity: its mandates must then become universal. It should be constantly borne in mind, that whenever nations have been submitted to the lash of despotism, it has generally been brought about by the treacherous defection of some of their degraded citizens: frequently by renegades who have apostatized, “Divide and conquer” is the tyrant’s motto; that of the freeman should be “unite and we shall be invulnerable,”—above all it should never be forgotten, that sterling...