servant like Necker, and to the
inappropriateness of putting his own metaphysical generalizations and
captious criticism of French royalty into the mouth of a peasant
mountaineer. Before the correspondence ended, Napoleon's student life
was over. Necker had fled, the French Revolution was rushing on with
ever-increasing speed, and the young adventurer, despairing of success
as a writer, seized the proffered opening to become a man of action.
In a letter dated January twelfth, 1789, and written at Auxonne to his
mother, the young officer gives a dreary account of himself. The
swamps of the neighborhood and their malarious exhalations rendered
the place, he thought, utterly unwholesome. At all events, he had
contracted a low fever which undermined his strength and depressed his
spirits. There was no immediate hope of a favorable response to the
petition for the moneys due on the mulberry plantation because "this
unhappy period in French finance delays furiously (_sic_) the
discussion of our affair. Let us hope, however, that we may be
compensated for our long and weary waiting and that we shall receive
complete restitution." He writes further a terse sketch of public
affairs in France and Europe, speaks despairingly of what the council
of war has in store for the engineers by the proposed reorganization,
and closes with tender remembrances to Joseph and Lucien, begging for
news and reminding them that he had received no home letter since the
preceding October. The reader feels that matters have come to a climax
and that the scholar is soon to enter the arena of revolutionary
activity. Curiously enough, the language used is French; this is
probably due to the fact that it was intended for the family, rather
than for the neighborhood circle.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Revolution in France.

The French Aristocracy -- Priests, Lawyers, and Petty Nobles
-- Burghers, Artisans, and Laborers -- Intelligent Curiosity
of the Nation -- Exasperating Anachronisms -- Contrast of
Demand and Resources -- The Great Nobles a Barrier to Reform
-- Mistakes of the King -- The Estates Meet at Versailles --
The Court Party Provokes Violence -- Downfall of Feudal
Privilege.

[Sidenote: 1787-89.]

At last the ideas of the century had declared open war on its
institutions; their moral conquest was already coextensive with
central and western Europe, but the first efforts toward their
realization were to