od and
youth. The opinion may be correct in the main, and would, for the
matter of that, be true as regards the great mass of adults. But the
more we know of psychology through autobiographies, the more certain
it appears that many a great life-plan has been formed in childhood,
and carried through with unbending rigor to the end. Whether
Buonaparte consciously ordered the course of his study and reading or
not, there is unity in it from first to last.

[Footnote 12: For an amusing caricature by a comrade at
Paris, see Chuquet: La jeunesse de Napoleon, I, 262. The
legend is: "Buonaparte, cours, vole au secours de Paoli
pour le tirer des mains de ses ennemis."]

After the first rude beginnings there were two nearly parallel lines
in his work. The first was the acquisition of what was essential to
the practice of a profession--nothing more. No one could be a soldier
in either army or navy without a practical knowledge of history and
geography, for the earth and its inhabitants are in a special sense
the elements of military activity. Nor can towns be fortified, nor
camps intrenched, nor any of the manifold duties of the general in the
field be performed without the science of quantity and numbers. Just
these things, and just so far as they were practical, the dark,
ambitious boy was willing to learn. For spelling, grammar, rhetoric,
and philosophy he had no care; neither he nor his sister Elisa, the
two strong natures of the family, could ever spell any language with
accuracy and ease, or speak and write with rhetorical elegance. Among
the private papers of his youth there is but one mathematical study of
any importance; the rest are either trivial, or have some practical
bearing on the problems of gunnery. When at Brienne, his patron had
certified that he cared nothing for accomplishments and had none.
This was the case to the end. But there was another branch of
knowledge equally practical, but at that time necessary to so few that
it was neither taught nor learned in the schools--the art of politics.

CHAPTER VI.

Private Study and Garrison Life.

Napoleon as a Student of Politics -- Nature of Rousseau's
Political Teachings -- The Abbe Raynal -- Napoleon Aspires
to be the Historian of Corsica -- Napoleon's First Love --
His Notions of Political Science -- The Books He Read --
Napoleon at Lyons -- His Transfer to Douay -- A Vict