310 ANECDOTES OF NAPOLEON. 



is the exact epistle of Napoleon, and must be read with much 



interest : — 



From the School of Brinne, April 23d, 1784. 



" From the day that M. de Marbeuf procured my entrance 

 into the royal school of Brienne, you thought probably, my dear fa- 

 ther, that you owed nothing further to your son; if such be youi 

 opinion, suffer me to deplore it both for your sake and mine. 

 You thus lose the pleasure of seeing me happy in your benefits, 

 and that of being grateful for them. Form, I beseech you, an 

 idea of my position, and justify, if it be possible, the silence 

 you observe to the requests I have made you. Extreme neces- 

 sity, doubt not, has constrained me to make them. Oh ! hap- 

 py he who can dispense with others, who has nothing to ask even 

 from those most near him '. Who obliged you to transplant me 

 hither? Why did you not consult your means? He who cannot 

 make his son an advocate, makes him a tradesman. Ought not 

 your self-love, too, to be wounded by the ignoble part I play among 

 the brilliant youths who surround me? Your son necessitous 

 among young men who want nothing ! My father, this order of things 

 cannot loncr°exist. You have a house at Sarlena, sell it. Let the 

 education of my brothers be limited, let my sisters labour to main- 

 tain themselves, in a word, sustain me honourably at the post where 

 you have placed me. I am on the eve of departing for the capital. 

 This removal cannot take place without expense. 1 have borrowed 

 two hundred francs on my bill at a month, I am willing to believe 

 that, on receivino- this, you will afford me the means of meeting it. 

 If I'failin this restitution Tam completely dishonoured, and perhaps 

 lost to you. As to the style of this letter, have the goodness to par- 

 don its rudeness, in consideration of the humiliations that I feel in 

 secret, and above all of the noble pride of my sentiments. Your 

 son, sir, is only sixteen, but the vastness of his ideas embrace the 

 amplitude of half a century. While honouring you as the author of 

 my days, I cannot, it is true, express to you an infantine respect. If 

 you can presage the results that th-s manly and powerfully formed 

 character may have, you will see in them the assurance that your 

 son will one day repay you a hundred fold, the sacrifices you have 

 made for him. If you hasten your reply in proportion to the ur- 

 o-ency of the motives which dictates this, I shall receive it before 

 my departure for the military school. Say all that is becoming to 

 every one interested in my happiness. Napoleon Buonaparte.'' 

 Compare this style to that which he used twenty years later, in 

 writing to Joseph, Louis, and Jerome, whom he had embarrassed 

 with crowns, and you must allow that is the same pen and the same 

 personage. ' M. Buonaparte was at Bastia when this letter reached 

 his consort, who, notwithstanding the excessive tenderness she felt 

 for Napoleon, to the prejudice of her other children, sent him the 

 following answer. 



" I have received your letter, my son. If your hand writing and 

 your signature did not prove it, I could not have believed this letter 

 to be yours." 



