Stories of Napoleon's bravery and courage and his wars and conquest. (Min words 500)
Answers
Answer:
Explanation:
Whenever we hear the name of Napoleon mentioned,
or see it printed in a book, it is usually in connection with a
hard-fought victory on the battlefield. He certainly spent most
of his life in the camp, and enjoyed the society of soldiers
more than that of courtiers. The thunder of guns, the charge of
cavalry, and the flash of bayonets as they glittered in the sun,
appealed to him with much the same force as music to more
ordinary folk. Indeed, he himself tells us that "the cries of the
dying, the tears of the hopeless, surrounded my cradle from
the moment of my birth."
We are apt to forget that this mighty conqueror, whom
Carlyle calls "our last great man," had a childhood at all. He
was born nearly a century and a half ago, on the 15th August
1769 to be exact, in the little town of Ajaccio; the capital of
picturesque Corsica This miniature island rises a bold treecovered rock in the blue waters of the Mediterranean, fifty
miles west of the coast of Italy. It had been sold to France by
the Republic of Genoa the previous year, but the inhabitants
had fought for their independence with praiseworthy
determination. Then civil war broke out, and the struggle
finally ended three months before the birth of the boy who was
to become the ruler of the conquering nation. The Corsicans
had their revenge in time, although in a way very different
from what they could have expected.
Letizia Bonaparte, Napoleon's mother, was as beautiful
as she was energetic, and her famous son never allowed
anyone to speak ill of her. "My excellent mother," said he, not
long before his death, "is a woman of courage and of great
talent . . . she is capable of doing everything for me," and he
added that the high position which he attained was due largely
to the careful way in which she brought him up. "It is to my
mother, to her good precepts and upright example, that I owe
my success and any great thing I have accomplished," he
averred, while to a general he remarked, "My mother was a
superb woman, a woman of ability and courage." A truly great
man always speaks well of his mother.
Napoleon was Letizia's fourth child, two having died in
infancy, while Joseph, the surviving son, was still unable to
toddle when the latest addition to the family was in his cradle.
His father was a happy-go-lucky kind of man of good
ancestry, a lawyer by profession, who on the landing of the
French had resigned the pen for the sword. He enlisted in the
army raised by Pascal Paoli to defend the island, for the
Corsicans were then a very warlike people and much sought
after as soldiers, and it is supposed by some that he acted as
Paoli's secretary. It is certain that the patriot showed him
marked favour, which was never repaid.
When Paoli and his loyal band were forced to make
their escape to the hospitable shores of England, Charles
Bonaparte meekly accepted the pardon offered to those who
would lay down their arms and acknowledge Louis XV. of
France as their King. After events proved the wisdom of his
choice, but scarcely justified his action.
The house in which the Bonaparte family lived at
Ajaccio is still standing, but has been patched up and repaired
so frequently that probably little of the original fabric remains.
It now belongs to the ex-Empress Eugenie, the consort of
Napoleon's ill-fated nephew who is known to history as
Napoleon III. You would not call it a mansion, and yet it
contains a spacious ballroom, a large square drawing-room,
Charles Bonaparte's study, a dining-room, a nursery, several
bedrooms, and a dressing-room. Some of the old furniture is
left, namely the Chippendale sofa on which the future
Emperor was born, his mother's spinet, and his father's desk.