in particular, but he was to prove as malleable in France as
he had been in Corsica.

Though nearly penniless, the noble deputy, with the vanity of the born
courtier, was flattered, and accepted the mission, setting out on
December fifteenth, 1778, by way of Italy with his two sons Joseph and
Napoleon. With them were Joseph Fesch, appointed to the seminary at
Aix, and Varesa, Letitia's cousin, who was to be sub-deacon at Autun.
Joseph and Napoleon both asserted in later life that during their
sojourn in Florence the grand duke gave his friend, their father, a
letter to his royal sister, Marie Antoinette. As the grand duke was at
that time in Vienna, the whole account they give of the journey is
probably, though perhaps not intentionally, untrue. It was not to the
Queen's intercession but to Marbeuf's powerful influence that the
final partial success of Charles de Buonaparte's supplication was due.
This is clearly proven by the evidence of the archives. To the
general's nephew, bishop of Autun, Joseph, now too old to be received
in a royal military school, and later Lucien, were both sent, the
former to be educated as a priest. It was probably Marbeuf's influence
also, combined with a desire to conciliate Corsica, which caused the
herald's office finally to accept the documents attesting the
Buonapartes' nobility.

It appears that the journey from Corsica through Florence and
Marseilles had already wrought a marvelous change in the boy.
Napoleon's teacher at Autun, the Abbe Chardon, described his pupil as
having brought with him a sober, thoughtful character. He played with
no one, and took his walks alone. In all respects he excelled his
brother Joseph. The boys of Autun, says the same authority, on one
occasion brought the sweeping charge of cowardice against all
inhabitants of Corsica, in order to exasperate him. "If they [the
French] had been but four to one," was the calm, phlegmatic answer of
the ten-year-old boy, "they would never have taken Corsica; but when
they were ten to one...." "But you had a fine general--Paoli,"
interrupted the narrator. "Yes, sir," was the reply, uttered with an
air of discontent, and in the very embodiment of ambition; "I should
much like to emulate him." The description of the untamed faun as he
then appeared is not flattering: his complexion sallow, his hair
stiff, his figure slight, his expression lusterless, his manner
insignificant. Moreover, his behavior was sullen, and at first