was therefore liable to six months' imprisonment. But
the young officer rightly gauged the weakness of the moribund
monarchy; and the officers of his almost mutinous regiment were glad
to get him back on any terms. Everywhere in his journey through
Provence and Dauphine, Buonaparte saw the triumph of revolutionary
principles. He notes that the peasants are to a man for the
Revolution; so are the rank and file of the regiment. The officers
are aristocrats, along with three-fourths of those who belong to "good
society": so are all the women, for "Liberty is fairer than they, and
eclipses them." The Revolution was evidently gaining completer hold
over his mind and was somewhat blurring his insular sentiments, when a
rebuff from Paoli further weakened his ties to Corsica. Buonaparte had
dedicated to him his work on Corsica, and had sent him the manuscript
for his approval. After keeping it an unconscionable time, the old man
now coldly replied that he did not desire the honour of Buonaparte's
panegyric, though he thanked him heartily for it; that the
consciousness of having done his duty sufficed for him in his old age;
and, for the rest, history should not be written in youth. A further
request from Joseph Buonaparte for the return of the slighted
manuscript brought the answer that he, Paoli, had no time to search
his papers. After this, how could hero-worship subsist?

The four months spent by Buonaparte at Auxonne were, indeed, a time of
disappointment and hardship. Out of his slender funds he paid for the
education of his younger brother, Louis, who shared his otherwise
desolate lodging. A room almost bare but for a curtainless bed, a
table heaped with books and papers, and two chairs--such were the
surroundings of the lieutenant in the spring of 1791. He lived on
bread that he might rear his brother for the army, and that he might
buy books, overjoyed when his savings mounted to the price of some
coveted volume.

Perhaps the depressing conditions of his life at Auxonne may account
for the acrid tone of an essay which he there wrote in competition for
a prize offered by the Academy of Lyons on the subject--"What truths
and sentiments ought to be inculcated to men for their happiness." It
was unsuccessful; and modern readers will agree with the verdict of
one of the judges that it was incongruous in arrangement and of a bad
and ragged style. The thoughts are set forth in jerky, vehement
clauses; and, in place of the _