en vomited upon our
coasts, drowning the throne of Liberty in waves of blood; such was the
sight which struck my eyes."

Corsican Napoleon declared himself in the youth of poverty and
discontent, when he had dreams of {169} rising to power by such
patriotism as had ennobled Paoli. Charles Buonaparte, his father, went
over to the winning side, and was eager to secure the friendship of
Marboeuf, the French governor of Corsica.

Napoleon, the second of thirteen children, owed assistance in his early
education to Marboeuf for it was impossible for his own family to do
more than provide the barest necessities of life. Charles Buonaparte
was an idle, careless man and the family poverty bore hardly on his
wife Letitia, who had been married at fifteen and compelled to perform
much drudgery.

Napoleon entered the military school at Brienne in April 1779, and from
there sent letters which might well have warned his parents that they
had hatched a prodigy. All the bitterness of a proud humiliated spirit
inspired them, whether the boy, despised by richer students, begged his
father to remove him, or urged, with utter disregard of filial piety,
the repayment by some means of a sum of money he had borrowed.

"If I am not to be allowed the means, either by you or my protector, to
keep up a more honourable appearance at the school I am in, send for me
home and that immediately. I am quite disgusted with being looked upon
as a pauper by my insolent companions, who have only fortune to
recommend them, and smile at my poverty; there is not one here, but who
is far inferior to me in those noble sentiments which animate my soul.
. . . If my condition cannot be ameliorated, remove me from Brienne;
put me to some mechanical trade, if it must be so; let me but find
myself among my equals and I will answer for it, I will soon be their
superior. You may judge {170} of my despair by my proposal; once more
I repeat it; I would sooner be foreman in a workshop than be sneered at
in a first-rate academy."

In the academy Napoleon remained, however, censured by his parents for
his ambitious, haughty spirit. He was gloomy and reserved and had few
companions, feeling even at this early age that he was superior to
those around him. He admired Cromwell, though he thought the English
general incomplete in his conquests. He read Plutarch and the
_Commentaries_ of Caesar and determined that his own career should be
that of a soldier, though he