have adhered to the king; a young lieutenant, I sided with the revolution."

It appears that about this time he was in correspondence with the celebrated Paoli, on the subject of his history of Corsica, and on the prospect of a more liberal state of things, which by the enlightened labours of the national assembly, was dawning on the nation. Paoli, in consequence of the success of Mirabeau's motion for the recall of the Corsican exiles, left England in 1790, and after being received with signal honour at Paris, was hailed on his arrival in Corsica with joyful demonstrations of general respect. The Corsicans placed in his hands whatever power they had to confer; the confidence of the Government was not inferior to the attachment of the people; and Paoli was appointed Lieutenant General in the army, and Commander in chief of the military division which comprehended the island.

This was the state of things in Corsica when, in September 1791, Bonaparte, after an absence of more than twelve years visited his native town on furlough. He had left it a wild, sprightly boy, he returned to it an accomplished officer, with powers of conception and expression singularly strong, and with a name already known in politics and letters. He joined his family in time to witness the last days of its second father, the good archdeacon, who had bestowed on it a parent's care. This venerable relative was so firmly persuaded of Napoleon's worth and genius, that on his death-bed he called the children around him, and accompanied his last blessing with this advice: "Joseph, you are the eldest of the sons; but remember what I say, Napoleon is the head of the house." As Joseph was by no means deficient in promise, the spirit of the injunction could not be misapprehended. It seems to have made a deep impression on the mind of Napoleon, and to have influenced his conduct as well as the expectations of his family, through life.

His power in the circle of his brethren, was the same which he exerted in the world at large, and the judgment of the secluded and expiring prelate, was confirmed by the devoted obedience of armies, and the deliberate confidence of a great nation. The feeling of the relative was directed by sagacity, the judgment of the people was actuated by affection, so that the ascendancy of Napoleon, whether viewed in its domestic or public character, may be said to have arisen from those legitimate sources, which

nature implants and reason consecrates; the light of man's understanding, and the warmth of his heart (3).

Her protecting son being in the army, Madame Bonaparte assumed the personal superintendence of the family affairs. These were by no means prosperous; for although the archdeacon left some ready money, his ecclesiastical income of course ceased with his life, and the costly and unsuccessful experiments of Charles Bonaparte in reclaiming an extensive salt marsh, had seriously impaired his estate (4). In these circumstances, however, the fortitude and good sense of his widow effected much. She managed her property with care and economy, and her children with that prudence and affection, which evinced through a long and eventful life the excellence of her cha

racter.

In February 1792, a general promotion, which was accelerated by the emigration of many officers, raised Bonaparte to the rank of captain. The divisions generated by the revolution had extended themselves to Corsica, where, modified by circumstances peculiar to the history of that island, they appeared in the shape of a party in favour of maintaining the union with France, and a party opposed to it. For the purpose of preserving the public peace, and supporting the legal authorities, a corps of local troops was raised in Corsica, and the provisional command of one of the battalions was intrusted to Bonaparte. The insurgents, or antiunion party, had at first the sympathy, and finally the countenance, of Paoli; and Ajaccio was the focus of its proceedings. Hence it happened that Bonaparte's first act of war, was exerted in opposition to the sentiments of his father's commander and in the suppression of a tumult in his native town. Peraldi, a popular leader of a rival family and the opposite party, who breathed hereditary enmity to the Bonaparte name, was at the head of the discomfited rioters; a circumstance which was not likely to soften the inveteracy of a clannish feud. Accordingly, he denounced Bonaparte to the government, as the secret instigator of the disorder which he had openly quelled. This accusation, prompted by vengeance, was unsupported by truth. But it rendered a journey to Paris advisable, where, though the sanguinary temper of power was beginning to encourage delation, Bonaparte found no difficulty in vindicating his conduct.

This slander of Peraldi is memorable as being coeval with the

earliest of Bonaparte's public services, and as the first in that long succession of falsehoods, which under the warmth and lustre of his merit, were exhaled from the disorder, malice, and corruption of his age. Though frustrated in its aim, it was not without effect in his history, as it was the occasion of his witnessing the outrages of the populace on the 20th of June and the 10th of August. On the first occasion, it is said that, upon seeing, from the river terrace of the garden of the Tuileries, the King present himself at a balcony of the palace, wearing the red cap of liberty, which, intimidated by the rabble, he had clapped upon his head, Bonaparte expressed indignation at the monarch's weakness, and exclaimed: "How could they suffer the mob to enter the palace? It was only necessary to sweep off a few hundreds of them with cannon, and the rest would have been running now." His contempt for a rout of this kind, originating in his love of order and pride of discipline, and his confidence in the application of military force, were both strengthened doubtless by his recent experience in Corsica.

He was still more shocked by the sanguinary excesses of the 10th of August. The brave and immolated Swiss guards, their bodies lying in heaps on the pavement of the court, and their heads paraded about on pikes by demons in human shape, struck him with horror, and presented a spectacle which he remembered as "hideous and revolting." Instinct with heroic fire, his soul shuddered at scenes of cruelty and murder, and his just understanding regarded the violence of a mob as the ferocity of a

monster.

But he was not in a position to reflect that the fault, instead of being in the infuriated populace, was in the oppression which had maddened them. They were born with natures as kind, with sensibilities as generous as the rest of mankind, but a bigoted and dissolute priesthood, a privileged and rapacious aristocracy, and a line of cruel and voluptuous kings, had driven them through all the extremities of persecution and shiftings of servitude, to the rage of despair. The great body of the French people had been treated like brutes until they were become brutal. Their mental vision had been so long obscured in depths of degradation, that the light of liberty affected them with blindness, the air of relief with convulsions. Exhausted by ages of oppression, a nation, renowned for generous devotion to ungrateful monarchs, was ex

cited to paroxyms of frenzy by the first sensations of freedom. But is this an argument in favour of divine right and legitimate monarchy, or a motive for distrusting the capacity of the people for self-government? The people of France were no more to blame than is the solitary maniac who, escaping from unrighteous chains, kills a stranger under the belief that in that stranger he is destroying the oppressor, whose cruelty tortured his limbs and distracted his brain. The objects of their fury were not the victims of popular rage, but of the royal vices which engendered it; and the axe which beheaded Louis XVI. was raised, not by his subjects, but his ancestors.

Through all the violence of the revolutionary struggles, the people had but one object of desire, freedom; but one subject of dread, tyranny; and their great leaders, the patriots of the revolution, pursued the noblest aims of human ambition, the liberty of their fellow-citizens, and the independence of their country. That the good which was desired and proposed was not all effected, and that unforeseen misery and crime could not be avoided, was their mutual misfortune, not their common fault. He, therefore, who stigmatizes the revolution because of its incidental atrocities or unexpected catastrophe, might consistently reproach a miner, whose enterprise and labour afford comfort to millions, because the fire-damps of the earth explode, when touched by the flame of his useful torch. And he who can lament over the downfall of a throne, and the suffering of the individuals connected with it, without execrating the tyranny of which it was the seat, might be expected to sympathize with the murderer, against whom the blood of his victim rises in judgment, without feeling indignation for the cruelty with which that blood had been shed, or pity for pangs which sent forth life in its current. The truth of these observations is too plain to be contested. They show that, as the excesses of the French revolution were the natural consequences of hereditary rule, the votaries of that system have no right to complain, when the vices of one king descend in vengeance on his successors. They also show that, if long-continued submission strengthens the hands of the oppressor, it makes his ultimate accountability the more perilous, by perverting the nature and the energies of the oppressed.

the

Of no great political event have all the consequences been beneficial. The struggle which emancipated the United States was

not unattended by the sorrows of innocence, and the sufferings of virtue. Unmingled advantages were not to be expected from the French revolution, of which, however, while the horrors were confined to France, the advantages redounded to mankind. That these were important, may be conceived by reflecting on the probable condition of Europe, had the first coalition against France been successful. Those who rail against the French revolution, and describe its excesses as effects of the natural propensity of the people and the press, would do well to compare them with the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the acknowledged offspring of the altar and the throne, since it was perpetrated by the order of Charles IX., and eulogised by the thanksgiving of Gregory II. The virtuous Sully records some of the horrors of this legitimate reign of terror, in which seventy thousand French protestants were massacred in the course of eight days.

While Bonaparte was on this occasion at Paris, he seems to have felt the weight of the inheritance which his dying uncle had turned aside from Joseph, and devolved upon him. His mother, though not in affluence, was in possession of comfort and independence, and for his own wants, his pay as captain of artillery, constituted adequate, though not ample provision. But his younger brothers and his sisters were to be educated, and the latter provided for. About these last he felt most anxiety, for in writing at this time to his uncle Paravicini, he observed:-"Allow yourself to feel no uneasiness concerning your nephews; they will be able to take care of themselves." Accompanied by Bourrienne, he went from Paris to St. Cyr, to visit his sister Eliza, who was then at school there; and it is said, in speculating upon the means of making money, formed the momentary project of renting a number of houses in Paris, and subletting them at profitable prices.

Returning to Corsica, and resuming the command of a local battalion, he was directed in January 1793, to join the expedition of Admiral Truguet, against the neighbouring island of Sardinia. A second battalion was added to his corps, which constituted a part of the land force of the armament. The expedition sailed, the main body under the admiral to attack Cagliari; and the Corsican detachment to make a diversion on the opposite side of the island. Bonaparte, with his militia force, executed his part of the enterprise so far as to get possession of several islets and forts, in the straits of Bonifacio. But the principal attempt under