has little value or meaning, except as it may
possibly foreshadow the influence on Napoleon's imagination of
England's boundless hospitality to political fugitives like Theodore
and Paoli.

Lieutenant Buonaparte remained in Paris until he succeeded in
procuring permission to spend the next six months in Corsica, at his
own charges. He was quite as disingenuous in his request to the
Minister of War as in his memorial to the intendant for Corsica,
representing that the estates of Corsica were about to meet, and that
his presence was essential to safeguard important interests which in
his absence would be seriously compromised. Whatever such a plea may
have meant, his serious cares as the real head of the family were ever
uppermost, and never neglected. Louis had, as was feared, lost his
appointment, and though not past the legal age, was really too old to
await another vacancy; Lucien was determined to leave Brienne in any
case, and to stay at Aix in order to seize the first chance which
might arise of entering the seminary. Napoleon made some
provision--what it was is not known--for Louis's further temporary
stay at Brienne, and then took Lucien with him as far as their route
lay together. He reached his home again on the first of January, 1788.

The affairs of the family were at last utterly desperate, and were
likely, moreover, to grow worse before they grew better. The old
archdeacon was failing daily, and, although known to have means, he
declared himself destitute of ready money. With his death would
disappear a portion of his income; his patrimony and savings, which
the Buonapartes hoped of course to inherit, were an uncertain
quantity, probably insufficient for the needs of such a family. The
mulberry money was still unpaid; all hope of wresting the ancestral
estates from the government authorities was buried; Joseph was without
employment, and, as a last expedient, was studying in Pisa for
admission to the bar. Louis and Lucien were each a heavy charge;
Napoleon's income was insufficient even for his own modest wants,
regulated though they were by the strictest economy. Who shall cast a
stone at the shiftiness of a boy not yet nineteen, charged with such
cares, yet consumed with ambition, and saturated with the romantic
sentimentalism of his times? Some notion of his embarrassments and
despair can be obtained from a rapid survey of his mental states and
the corresponding facts. An ardent republican and revolut