JOSEPH BONAPARTE, BROTHER OF NAPOLEON. making their brave defense against overpowering numbers, he could not help saying to himself, "If I commanded those fine fellows, I would make short work of all that canaille." But there was no one to command them, and the monarchy fell to pieces, and the Swiss were murdered, and waited many years for Thorwaldsen and Carlyle to make them immortal. The time came quite soon enough for the artillery officer to justify his confident estimate of himself and a mob of Paris. The family of Bonapartes were of pure Italian race; there was not a drop of French blood in any of them. Their ancestors had come from the main-land in the early history of Corsica, and their names are found in the remote annals of Ajaccio. Carlo Bonaparte was a poor gentleman of excellent breeding and character, who married in his youth a young and romantic girl named Letizia Ramolino, who followed him in his campaigns up to the moment of the birth of Napoleon. It is impossible to say how much the history of Europe owes to the high heart and indomitable spirit of this soldierly woman. She never relinquished her authority in her family. When all her children were princes and potentates, she was still the severe, stern Ma and grace of Josephine Beauharnais never conquered her; the sweet Tyrolese prettiness of Maria Louisa won from her only a sort of contemptuous indulgence. When her mighty son ruled the continent, she was the only human being whose chidings he regarded or endured. She was faithful in her rebukes while the sun shone, and when calamity came, her undaunted spirit was still true and devoted to the fallen. Her provincial habit of economy stood her in good stead in her vigorous old age; she was rich when the Empire had passed away, and her grandchildren needed her aid. It must have been from her that Napoleon took his extraordinary character, for Carlo Bonaparte, though a brave soldier and an ardent patriot in his youth, was of an easy and genial temper, inclined to take the world as he found it, and not to insist too much on having it go in his especial way. After the cause of Corsican liberty was lost by the success of the French arms, he accepted the situation without regret, and becoming intimate with the conquerors, he placed as many of his family as possible on the French pension list. His sons Napoleon and Louis were given scholarships at Brienne and at Autun, and his eldest daughter, Élise, entered the royal institution at St. Cyr. While yet in the prime of life, he died of the same deadly disease which was to finish Napoleon's days at St. Helena; and the heroic mother, her responsibilities becoming still heavier by this blow, lived for eight years longer amid the confusion and civil tumult which had become chronic in Corsica; and then, after the capture of the island by the English in 1793, she made her escape with her children to Marseilles, where she lived several years in great penury. Her family of five sons and three daughters would have been a heavy burden upon her resources if they had been children of rose to rebellion, it was always felt to be such on both sides. He was not, on the whole, an ungentle patriarch to those of his blood; and when they were all young and poor together, he was self-sacrificing, generous, and kind to his brothers and the ordinary sort. But the two elder LUCIEN BONAPARTE, BROTHER OF NAPOLEON. It was little in the way of money that he could spare from his scanty wages as a subaltern of artillery, but he spared what he could, and where it was possible he spent much of his time with them, and superintended their studies. He was able to give them a good deal of care, for in those years of utter disorganization of society the discipline of the army was shamefully lax, and the young officers spent as much time at home and in their debating clubs as they did at their barracks. Joseph and Lucien were by their age somewhat removed from his active control, but over Louis and Jerome and his sisters he exercised an authority which was justified by his affection and his care. Never was careful training more needed in any family in the world, for every one of these children was to govern remote and distant principalities and kingdoms, and to mingle with the LOUIS BONAPARTE, BROTHER OF NAPOLEON. purple-born monarchs of immemorial descent as equals and as superiors. ed, and retired in great disturbance of mind to consider what he should do. Honor or the guillotine was in the throw. By the next sunset he would be either a prisoner condemned to speedy death as a traitor, or a man necessary to the Directory. He decided -as such a man must decidefor action. He instantly dispatched his adjutant, Murata young officer who knew how to ride-to Sablons for the artillery. He got there just in time, with not a minute to spare the sections were on his heels. The guns were posted in the night at every available point, and the next day, after several hours of threatening demonstrations, the contest began, and in an hour the guns of Bonaparte had blown to the four winds a far more formidable attack than any of those before which the monarchy had gone down. The Convention was saved, but the sallow. silent young man whose cannon had made peace in the streets had a claim for salvage which would be presented in due time. This was the true beginning of his career, and also the beginning of the end of the short-lived Republic. PubThe first great opportunity offered to lic opinion had risen against the govern Napoleon Bonaparte was on the 5th of ment; the government had blown pubOctober, called in the fanciful calendar of lic opinion in pieces with artillery; and the Revolution the 13th Vendémiaire-the the young man who could handle artilmonth of the vintage. He had previous-lery in that way was sure of his future. ly distinguished himself by a remarkable exploit at the siege of Toulon, and had shown great capacity in a short campaign in Piedmont. But achievements like those only commended him to the notice of soldiers. He had now an opportunity to bring artillery into politics, and he did it with terrible effect. The Convention was confronted with the arm-ly and accomplished widow of one Vied mob which had placed it in power, and which proposed to direct it, as the Jacobin mobs had directed its predecessors. The moment was critical. The victors of Thermidor would have been outcasts and fugitives in another day, had Barras not thought of his young friend Bonaparte, who "could handle artillery better than any man in France." Napoleon was in the gallery, and heard his name mention No family in history was ever raised to such lofty fortunes so suddenly; and few families that ever existed could have sustained themselves at such altitudes with so much of ability, cleverness, and dignity. When his time should come, he could no doubt serve the government as he had served its assailants. The flight of the eagle was taken, and there was no longer any check or pause in his career until all was over. His success in Paris gave him access to the best official society, and he there met the love comte de Beauharnais, who was one of the brightest ornaments of the Thermidorean circle. His wooing was as abrupt and energetic as that of a young lion. The lady of his love was bewildered and alarmed at the violence of his devotion, and by the extraordinary assurance with which he promised her to win glory and power with his sword. She was six years his senior, and naturally distrusted this youthful arrogance. But her indolent | tent with plundering and betraying them, creole temperament yielded to his im- he called them, in a letter to Talleyrand, petuous suit, and Barras's wedding pres-"an indolent, superstitious, buffoonish, ent was the command-in-chief of the cowardly population." What he said in Army of Italy. The honey-moon was of his own speeches and proclamations he the briefest; the wedding was on the 9th | admits "is mere romance." He was utof March, and a few days afterward he terly cynical in his orders to his officers. was at his head-quarters at Nice. When he commanded Perrée to seize the From this time began that marvellous navy of Venice-a power with which he career which seems already fabulous. In had no cause of quarrel whatever-he a fortnight after crossing the frontier he wrote: "Seize everything; but take care had won four victories, and conquered Sar- to call it always the Venetian navy, and dinia, and he kept up in the same colossal constantly have on your lips the unity of fashion the series of conquests thus be- the two republics!" But he was regal.in gun. It is to be hoped the world will nev- all his qualities and crimes. When he er see again such a spectacle of prodigious had established himself at Montebello, ability. His treachery, his rapacity, his near Milan, and Madame Bonaparte had cold-blooded selfishness, his duplicity and joined him, he kept the greatest court in cruelty, are as marvellous as his unending Europe. Only a year before, he was a success. He treated the Directory with poor unfriended officer on the Paris paveutter contempt, and sent them such loads ment, cramped in his circumstances, unof treasure that they pardoned his insults. certain of his livelihood. But even his He flattered the prelates of Rome with enemies admit that he kept his court at words which they still quote with pleas- Milan like a king. He surrounded himure, and he spoke of them at the same self with savans and artists, with genertime as "babbling dotards." He never als and beauties. He dined in public, lost an opportunity to laud the Italian like sovereigns of the ancient régime, and people in his proclamations; but not con- received the homage of the people as if his ancestors had been demigods. He-the swarms of uneducated and roughriding soldiers, mingled with the few noblemen who, like Talleyrand, adhered to the new régime for the place and power it afforded them, and the crowds of pretty women with whom the First Consul loved to be surrounded. Something of this His interests at home were jealously incongruity seems to have struck Napoand intelligently guarded by his brothers leon himself. He liked fine dresses for his Joseph and Lucien, who had become men court and his officers, but was best pleased of importance in the government before when he himself was dressed shabbily. his return from Italy; and when he was He said, one day of ceremony, to Maabsent in Egypt it was his brother Joseph dame De Remusat, "The right to be simwho dispatched the wily Greek Bourbaki | ply dressed does not belong to everybody." in hot haste to warn him that the fullness At another time, while his marshals were of time was come for him to make an end squabbling for precedence, he said, "It is of the Directory. The success of the very convenient to govern Frenchmen by 18th Brumaire was due in great part to vanity." He seemed, then as always, to the fact that the three allies upon whom regard himself as a man apart, not subhe most implicitly counted inside the gov- ject to the laws which governed the rest ernment were his own brothers, bound of the human race. After the death of to him by every tie of affection and in- his nephew and presumptive heir, the son terest. Joseph had declined the mission of King Louis of Holland, when Talleyto Berlin, to remain in Paris as a mem-rand proposed he should show some signs ber of the Council of Five Hundred; of mourning, he said, abruptly, "I do not Lucien was President of it, and young Louis was also a member. His brothers were his principal go-betweens in that drama of unparalleled treachery by which the Directors were divided and disarmed. On the final day at St. Cloud, when Na-like other men, for whom laws are made." poleon had failed in his attempt to intimidate the Assembly, and had been borne fainting from the hall, it was Lucien who, mounting on horseback, presented himself to the troops as the representative of the law, and commanded them to disperse by the bayonet the Assembly he had betrayed. He showed on this occasion far greater courage and presence of mind than Napoleon, and roused the soldiers to enthusiasm by a piece of comedy which now seems absurd enough. He seized a sword, at the end of his harangue, and cried: "I swear to thrust this through the heart of my brother if he should ever strike a blow at the liberties of France." The soldiers applauded; Murat hurried them forward at a quick step. The drums beat a charge, to drown the voices of the outraged legislators, and the liberties of France were at an end for many long years. In the recently published memoirs of Madame De Remusat some curious details are given of the social life of the Tuileries after the Bonapartes had taken possession of the palace. It made a singular impression upon this high-born lady amuse myself by thinking about the dead." In reply to some remonstrance from his wife about his too open immoralities, he said, with perfect calmness, "I need distractions. I am not a man Lucien, with all his adroit devotion, was the only brother of Napoleon who did not become a king. He was, it is true, Minister of the Interior during the early years of the Consulate; but his independence soon embroiled him with the First Consul, and after a short but brilliant service as ambassador and tribune, he married the divorced wife of the great broker Jouberthon, against his brother's positive prohibition, and encountered his bitter and malignant hostility for the rest of his days. He never surrendered his dignity and manhood; and after the Consulate had blossomed into the Empire, and Napoleon was disposing of crowns and thrones among his family with a lavish hand, Lucien alone had the cour age to refuse these glittering bribes which were offered as the price of his honor. The Emperor knew his value, and wished to employ him: he offered him a crown the crown was not specified, but he always had a supply on hand, or made them when he wished-a princely husband for his daughter, and a duchy for his wife if he would divorce her. But Lucien declined; and the Emperor, in a |