ght to die.

For ill health and misfortune proved too much for this disheartened
Corsican gentleman; and, before his boys were grown to manhood, he gave
up his unsuccessful struggle for place and fortune. He had worked hard
to do his best for his boys and girls; he had done much that the world
considers unmanly; he had changed and shifted, sought favors from the
great and rich, and taken service that he neither loved nor approved.
But he had done all this that his children might be advanced in the
world; and though he died in debt, leaving his family almost penniless,
still he had spent himself in their behalf; and his children loved and
honored his memory, and never forgot the struggles their father had
made in their behalf. In fact, much of his spirit of family devotion
descended to his famous son Napoleon, the schoolboy.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

LIEUTENANT PUSS-IN-BOOTS.

Napoleon returned to his studies after his father's death, poorer than
ever in pocket, and greatly distressed over his mother's condition.

For Charles Bonaparte's death had taken away from the family its main
support. The income of their uncle, the canon, was hardly sufficient
for the family's needs. Joseph gave up his endeavors, and returned
to Corsica to help his mother. But Napoleon remained at the military
school; for his future depended upon his completing his studies, and
securing a position in the army.

How much the boy had his mother in his thoughts, you may judge from this
letter which he wrote her a month after his father's death:

MY DEAR MOTHER,--Now that time has begun to soften the first transports
of my sorrow. I hasten to express to you the gratitude I feel for all
the kindness you have always displayed toward us. Console yourself, dear
mother, circumstances require that you should. We will redouble our care
and our gratitude, happy if, by our obedience, we can make up to you in
the smallest degree for the inestimable loss of a cherished husband I
finish, dear mother,--my grief compels it--by praying you to calm yours.
My health is perfect, and my daily prayer is that Heaven may grant you
the same. Convey my respects to my Aunt Gertrude, to Nurse Saveria, and
to my Aunt Fesch.

Your very humble and affectionate son,

NAPOLEON.

At the same time he wrote to his kind old uncle, the Canon Lucien,
saying: "It would be useless to tell you how deeply I have felt the blow
that has just fallen upon us. We have lost a father;