"man of
destiny,"--to work for a time on the imagination and superstition of
his age. Sometimes he forgot his part, and displayed the shrewd,
calculating, hard-working man behind the mask, who was less a fatalist
than a personified fate, less a child of fortune than its maker.
"Great events," he wrote a very short time later from Italy, "ever
depend but upon a single hair. The adroit man profits by everything,
neglects nothing which can increase his chances; the less adroit, by
sometimes disregarding a single chance, fails in everything." Here is
the whole philosophy of Bonaparte's life. He may have been sincere at
times in the other profession; if so, it was because he could find no
other expression for what in his nature corresponded to romance in
others.

The general and his adjutant reached Marseilles in due season.
Associated with them were Marmont, Junot, Murat, Berthier, and Duroc.
The two last named had as yet accomplished little: Berthier was
forty-three, Duroc only twenty-three. Both were destined to close
intimacy with Napoleon and to a career of high renown. The good news
of Napoleon's successes having long preceded them, the home of the
Bonapartes had become the resort of many among the best and most
ambitious men in the southern land. Elisa was now twenty, and though
much sought after, was showing a marked preference for Pasquale
Bacciocchi, the poor young Corsican whom she afterward married.
Pauline was sixteen, a great beauty, and deep in a serious flirtation
with Freron, who, not having been elected to the Five Hundred, had
been appointed to a lucrative but uninfluential office in the great
provincial town--that of commissioner for the department. Caroline,
the youngest sister, was blossoming with greater promise even than
Pauline. Napoleon stopped a few days under his mother's roof to
regulate these matrimonial proceedings as he thought most
advantageous. On March twenty-second he reached the headquarters of
the Army of Italy. The command was assumed with simple and appropriate
ceremonial. The short despatch to the Directory announcing this
momentous event was signed "Bonaparte." The Corsican nobleman di
Buonaparte was now entirely transformed into the French general
Bonaparte. The process had been long and difficult: loyal Corsican;
mercenary cosmopolitan, ready as an expert artillery officer for
service in any land or under any banner; lastly, Frenchman, liberal,
and revolutionary. So far he had b