The Boy Life of Napoleon, Afterwards Emperor of the French Part 15

Then Madame Permon, as tenderly as if she had been the girl's mother, led her aside; and finding a remote seat in a corner, she drew the child into her lap.

"Eliza," she said with gracious kindliness, "I must know why you are in sorrow. Think of me as your mother, dear; as one who must act in her place until you return to her. Speak to me as to your mother. Let me have your love and confidence. Tell me, my child, what troubles you."

The tender solicitude of her mother's friend quite vanquished Eliza's stubbornness. Her tears burst out afresh; and between the sobs she stammered,--

"You know, Madame, that Lucie de Montluc leaves the school in eight days."

"I did not know it, Eliza," Madame Permon said, keeping back a smile; "but if that so overcomes you, then am I sorry too."

"Oh, no, Madame'" Eliza said, just a bit indignant at being misunderstood; "it is not her leaving that makes me cry; but, you see, on the day she goes away her cla.s.s will give her a good--by supper."

"What! and you are not invited?" exclaimed Madame Permon. "Ah, that is the trouble, Madame," cried Eliza, the tears gathering again. "I am invited."

"And yet you cry?"

"It is because each girl is to contribute towards the supper; and I, Madame, can give nothing. My allowance is gone."

"So!" Madame Permon whispered, glad to have at last reached the real cause of the trouble, "that is the matter. And you have nothing left?"

"Only a dollar, Madame," replied Eliza. "But if I give that, I shall have no more money; and my allowance does not come to me for six weeks.

Indeed, what I have is not enough for my needs until the six weeks are over. Am I not miserable?"

Napoleon, who had gradually drawn nearer the corner, thrust his hand into his pocket as he heard Eliza's complaint. But he drew it out as quickly. His pocket was empty. Mortified and angry, he stamped his foot in despair. But no one noticed this pantomime.

"How much, my dear, is necessary to quiet this great sorrow?" Madame Permon asked of Eliza with a smile. Eliza looked into her good friend's eyes.

"Oh, Madame! it is an immense sum," she replied,

"Let me know the worst," Madame Permon said, with affected distress.

"How much is it?"

"Two dollars!" confessed Eliza in despair.

"Two dollars!" exclaimed Madame Permon; "what extravagant ladies we are at St. Cyr!" Then she hugged Eliza to her; and, as she did so, she slyly slipped a five-dollar piece into the girl's hand. "Hus.h.!.+ take it, and say nothing," she said; for, above all, she did not wish her action to be seen by Napoleon. For Madame Permon well knew the sensitive pride of the Bonaparte children.

Soon after they left the school; and when once they were within the carriage Napoleon's ill-humor burst forth, in spite of himself.

"Was ever anything more humiliating?" he cried; "was ever anything more unjust? See how it is with that poor child. The rich and poor are placed together, and the poor must suffer or be pensioners. Is it not abominable, the way these schools of St. Cyr and the Paris military are run? Two dollars for a scholars' picnic in a place where no child is supposed to have money. It is enormous!"

His friends made no reply to this boyish outburst; but, when the military school was reached, Monsieur Permon followed Napoleon into the parlor.

"Napoleon," he said, "at your age one is not furious against the world unless he has particular reason."

"And are not my sister's tears a reason, sir, when I cannot remedy their cause?" Napoleon answered with emotion.

"But when I came here for you," said Monsieur Permon, "you, too, appeared angry, as if some trouble had occurred between yourself and your schoolfellows."

"I am unfortunate, sir, not to be able to conceal my feelings," said Napoleon; "but it does seem as if the boys here delighted in making me feel my poverty. They live in an insolent luxury; and whoever cannot imitate them,"--here Napoleon dashed a hand to his forehead,--"Oh, it is to die of humiliation!"

"At your age, my Napoleon, one submits and blames no one," said Monsieur Permon, smiling, in spite of himself, at the boy's desperation.

"At my age' yes, sir," Napoleon rejoined, as if keeping back some great thought. "But later--ah, if, some day, I should ever be master!

However"--and the French shrug that is so eloquent completed the sentence.

"However,"--Monsieur Permon took up his words--"while waiting, one may now and then find a friend. And you take your part here with the boys, do you not?"

Napoleon was silent; and Monsieur Permon, remembering the trouble that had weighed Eliza down, concluded also that some such trial might be a part of Napoleon's school-life.

"Let me help you, my boy," he said.

At this unexpected proposition Napoleon flushed deeply; then the red tinge paled into the sallow one again, and he responded, "I thank you, sir, but I do not need it."

"Napoleon," said Monsieur Permon, "your mother is my wife's dearest friend; your father has long been my good comrade. Is it right for sons to refuse the love of their fathers, or for boys to reject the friends.h.i.+ps of their elders? Pride is excellent; but even pride may sometimes be pernicious. It is pride that sets a barrier between you and your companions. Do not permit it. Regard friends.h.i.+p as of more value than self-consideration; and, for my sake, let me help you to join in these occasions that may mean so much to you in the way of friends.h.i.+p."

Thus deftly did good Monseiur Permon smooth over the bitterness that inequality in pocket allowances so often stirs between those who have little and those who have much.

Napoleon fixed upon his father's friend one of his piercing looks, and taking his proffered money, said:--

"I accept it, sir, as if it came from my father, as you wish me to consider it. But if it came as a loan, I could not receive it. My people have too many charges already; and I ought not to increase them by expenses which, as is often the case here, are put upon me by the folly of my schoolfellows."

The Permons proved good friends to the Bonaparte children; and it was to their house at Montpellier that, in the spring of 1785, Charles Bonaparte was brought 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 s.h.i.+fted, 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 grat.i.tude I feel for all the kindness you have always displayed toward us. Console yourself, dear mother, circ.u.mstances require that you should. We will redouble our care and our grat.i.tude, 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; and G.o.d alone knows what a father, and what were his attachment and devotion to us. Alas!

everything taught us to look to him as the support of our youth. But the will of G.o.d is unalterable. He alone can console us."