ists of
two papers, one in the archives of the French war department, one in
those of Ajaccio. The former is dated 1782, and testifies to the birth
of Nabulione on January seventh, 1768, and to his baptism on January
eighth; the latter is the copy, not the original, of a government
contract which declares the birth, on January seventh, of Joseph
Nabulion. Neither is decisive, but the addition of Joseph, with the
use of the two French forms for the name in the second, with the clear
intent of emphasizing his quality as a Frenchman, destroys much of its
value, and leaves the weight of authority with the former. The
reasonableness of the suspicion seems to be heightened by the fact
that the certificate of Napoleon's marriage gives the date of his
birth as February eighth, 1768. Moreover, in the marriage contract of
Joseph, witnesses testify to his having been born at Ajaccio, not at
Corte.

But there are facts of greater weight on the other side. In the first
place, the documentary evidence is itself of equal value, for the
archives of the French war department also contain an extract from the
one original baptismal certificate, which is dated July twenty-first,
1771, the day of the baptism, and gives the date of Napoleone's birth
as August fifteenth, 1769. Charles's application for the appointment
of his two eldest boys to Brienne has also been found, and it
contains, according to regulation, still another copy from the
original certificate, which is dated June twenty-third, 1776, and also
gives what must be accepted as the correct date. This explodes the
story that Napoleon's age was falsified by his father in order to
obtain admittance for him to the military school. The application was
made in 1776 for both boys, so as to secure admission for each before
the end of his tenth year. It was the delay of the authorities in
granting the request which, after the lapse of three years or more,
made Joseph ineligible. The father could have had no motive in 1776 to
perpetrate a fraud, and after that date it was impossible, for the
papers were not in his hands; moreover, the minister of war wrote in
1778 that the name of the elder Buonaparte boy had already been
withdrawn. That charge was made during Napoleon's lifetime. His
brother Joseph positively denied it, and asserted the fact as it is
now substantially proved to be; Bourrienne, who had known his Emperor
as a child of nine, was of like opinion; Napoleon himself, in an
aut