Napoleon in School

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter one of the Story of Napoleon. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings on the public domain. For
more information or a volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by Patrick Seville. The Story of Napoleon by Henrietta
Elizabeth Marshall, Chapter one, Napoleon at School. To the south

(00:24):
of Europe, there is a sunny blue sea called the Mediterranean.
In this sunny blue sea, about fifty miles from the
coast of Italy, lies the island of Corsica, a rugged
and beautiful little island full of mountains. Its people are
hardy and brave, and like all mountain peoples, they love liberty.

(00:45):
But for hundreds of years the island belonged to the
Republic of Genoa. The people hated to be ruled by Genoa,
and at last, under a leader called Paoli, they rebelled
and fought for freedom, fought, indeed so well that they
nearly drove the Genoese out. Then the Genoese asked the
French to help them, and at last, tired of the struggle,

(01:07):
they sold the island to France. At that the Corsicans
were very angry. What right had the Genoese to sell
them like cattle to a new master, they asked. So
they went on fighting the French as they had fought
the Genoese. Among those who fought were Charles Marie Buonaparte
and his brave wife, Latitzia. Buonaparte was an Italian, but

(01:32):
for many years his family had lived in Corsica. He
was a noble, but in Corsica there was little difference
between nobles and shepherds. They were all poor and proud alike.
Latzia was young and beautiful, yet she bore all the
hardships of war bravely. She followed her husband, even to
the battlefield. She was often in danger from flying bullets,

(01:54):
yet she feared nothing and thought only of the safety
of her husband and the freedom of her country. By
mountain paths steep and narrow, through trackless forests called in
Corsica Mackay, over streams where there were no bridges, Letitia
followed her husband. She was only a girl, but she
had the heart of a hero, and not until the

(02:16):
struggle proved hopeless did she give in. For France was great,
and Corsica little, and brave though the people were, they
were at last forced to yield. Their island became part
of the French dominion, and their leader Paoli, fled over
the seas, and here in this little isle, almost before
the roar of battle had ceased, among a people full

(02:39):
of sullen anger and bitterness against their conquerors. One blazing
August day in seventeen sixty nine, a little son was
born to Charles and the Titzia Bonaparte. They gave him
the name of Napoleon, a name which he was to
make famous all the world over and for all time
to come. Napoleon brothers and sisters, and their mother, having

(03:02):
only one servant, had little time to look after the children,
so she gave them a big, empty room in which
to play. The walls and the floor of this room
were bare, and there was nothing in it except the
children's toys. Here they were allowed to do as they liked.
They scribbled and drew pictures on the walls, and played
at all sorts of games. Napoleon always drew soldiers marching

(03:26):
to battle, and he played with nothing but a drum
and a wooden sword. He used to get up battles
amongst the boys of the neighborhood. The wars would last
for months at a time, during which there would be
many fierce fights, surprises, and assaults. Napoleon was always leader
and made the others obey him. He was afraid of

(03:48):
no one, and he bit, scratched and slapped anyone big
or little as he chose. He was often nosy and quarrelsome,
and bullied his brothers and sisters, especially Joseph, who was
older than he. But at times, even when he was
a very small boy, he would be moody and thoughtful,
and would walk about by himself, refusing to speak or

(04:11):
play with the others. He was an untidy little boy,
not caring in the least how he was dressed. Straight,
dark hair straggled over his brown face, his stockings hung
down over his shoe tops, and altogether he must have
looked a wild little harm scrum. When Napoleon was about
five years old, he was sent to a school for

(04:32):
little girls kept by nuns, but he did not stay
long there and was soon sent to a boy's school
with his brother Joseph. Here, the boys in class were
set opposite each other in two rows, each under a
large flag. One was the flag of Carthage, the other
the flag of Rome. With s p q R upon it,

(04:55):
which means Synetus populisk Romanus. It is Latin for the
senate and people of Rome. The boys were arranged like
this so that each side might try to learn better
than the other and fight and conquer in lessons as
a Romans and the Carthaginians fought in war. As Napoleon
was the younger of the two brothers, he was put

(05:17):
on the side of Carthage, but he did not like
that at all, for in history he knew the Romans
had always been the conquerors, and he liked to be
on the winning side. So Joseph, who did not mind
so much, changed with Napoleon and allowed him to be
a Roman. Napoleon loved soldiers better than anything else, and
he longed to be one. Every morning, before he went

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to school, he was given a piece of white bread.
This he used to give to a soldier in exchange
for a piece of coarse brown bread. His mother was
not very pleased at this. Why do you give away
your good white bread for a piece of brown, she
asked him one day, Because replied Napoleon, if I'm going

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to be a soldier, I must get used to eating
soldier's bread. Besides, I like it. As he loved soldiers
so much, his father and mother decided that he should
be one. In one December day, a little ship sailed
away from Corsica, carrying Charles Bonaparte and his two sons,
Joseph and Napoleon, over the sea to France. Napoleon was

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not yet ten and Joseph scarcely a year older. He
was going to learn to be a priest, and Napoleon
to be a soldier. The boys were sent to school
at a town called Otton. With his fellows. Joseph soon
became a favorite. He was a little shy at first,
but he was lively and gay and joined in games
with other boys. Napoleon, on the other hand, was silent

(06:46):
and sad. His dark face looked sulky, and instead of
joining in the games, he liked best to go about
by himself. So the boys teased him. They called him
cowardly Corsican and reminded him that his island had been
conquered by the French. At first, Napoleon paid no attention.

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Then suddenly, one day, flashing round on his tormentors, he cried,
if the French had been four against one only they
would never have had Corsica. But they were ten to one.
But if Joseph was the greater favorite, Napoleon was far
the more clever. He soon learned to read and speak
in French. For to the boys, French was a foreign language.

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At home in Corsica, a spoke Italian. But although Napoleon
learned to speak French very well all his life long,
he made mistakes in it, especially in writing. He wrote
very badly too, to hide his bed spelling. Some people
say the little sulky, lonely boy did not stay long
at Oton. In about three months, his father came to

(07:53):
take him away to the military school at Brienne, but
Joseph was to be left at Oton. The two brothers
had never been before parted, and although Napoleon bully Joseph,
they were very fond of each other. Now that they
were in a strange land, far from their home, among
people speaking a strange language, they seemed to love each

(08:14):
other more. When they knew that they must part, Joseph
burst into tears, but Napoleon tried hard to pretend that
he did not care. His dark face only turned more
sulky than before. But although he tried hard. He could
not quite keep back the tears, and one slowly trickled
down his cheek. At first, Napoleon was not happy at

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his new school. Even though he was dressed in a
uniform and he was going to be a soldier, he
was dreadfully homesick. He was told that he would have
to stay at school for six years, and to a
little boy of nine, it seemed as if six years
would never end. As Napoleon was shy, moody, and silent,

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His schoolfellows teased him here too. They nicknamed him straw
on nose because they thought that he held his nose
in the air, and that Napoleon sounded like the French
words for straw on nose, the paya o ni. They
teased him also about his country. You are a conquered nation,
a people of slaves, they said. But one winter, when

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Napoleon had been about four years at school, the boys
had lessons about the building of ramparts and fortifications. They
were taught the names of the different kinds of forts,
their uses, and how best to attack and defend them.
While these lessons were going on, there came a heavy
fall of snow. This gave Napoleon a grand idea. He

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proposed that they should build the fortress of snow and
attack and defend it like soldiers. All the boys were
delighted with the idea. Napoleon drew out the lines of
the fort, and soon every one was hard at work
with spade and wilberrol, eagerly building under Napoleon's directions. When
the fort was finished, the boys took sides and fought

(10:04):
with snowballs. Napoleon was general, and he commanded both sides,
giving orders sometimes to the besiegers, sometimes to the defenders.
The masters were quite pleased and looked on, cheering those
boys who showed the most courage and cleverness. Soon the
fame of the fort spread far, and people came from

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all around about to see it and watch the fights.
These went on as long as the snow lay upon
the ground. But at last March came and the sun
began to grow warm, the snow melted, and the storming
and the snowballing came to an end. The masters were
not sorry when this happened, as many of the boys
had caught bad colds from playing so much in the snow.

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As for Napoleon, he was more sure than ever, that
the life of a soldier was the grandest possible, and
he felt that he was born to make others obey him.
As to his lessons, the Poleon learned no Greek, and
never did his Latin well. He loved the tales of
the Greek and Roman heroes, but he read them in translations.

(11:09):
It seemed to him a waste of time to try
to read them in a dead or foreign language. At
arithmetic and geometry, he was good. He liked his geography
lessons too, But above all he loved history. Whenever he
had a spare moment, he might be found reading, and
it was history in the lives of the great men
that he read. Indeed, he often read when he ought

(11:32):
to have been playing games. So he never grew tall,
and although his shoulders were broad, he was thin and
delicate looking. End of Chapter one