So when Charles Bonaparte was ready to sail to his duties in France, it was arranged that he should take with him Joseph, Napoleon, and Uncle Joey Fesch. Joseph was now eleven years old; Napoleon was nine, and Uncle Joey was fifteen.
Joseph and Uncle Joey were to be educated as priests; Napoleon was to go to the military school at Brienne. But, at first, both the brothers were sent to a sort of preparatory school at Autun.
Napoleon was delighted. He was to go out into the world. He was to be a man; and yet, when the time came, he hated to leave his home. He was fond of his family; indeed, his life was largely given up to remembering and helping his mother and brothers and sisters. He regretted leaving his dear grotto; he was sorry to say good-by to Panoria—his favorite "La Giacommetta." But his future had been decided upon by his father and mother, and he promised to do great things for them when he was old enough to be a captain in the army—even if it were the army of France. For, you see, he was still so earnest a Corsican patriot, that he wished rather to free Corsica than to defend France.
"Who knows?" he boasted one day to Panoria; "perhaps I will become a colonel, and come back here and be a greater man than Paoli. Perhaps I may free Corsica. What would you think of that, Panoria?"
"I should think it funny for a boy who went to school in France to come away and fight France," said practical Panoria.
But Napoleon would not see it in this way. He dreamed of glory, and believed he would yet be able to strike a blow for the freedom of Corsica. At last the day of departure arrived. There was a lingering leave-taking and a sorrowful one. For the first time, the Bonaparte boys were leaving their mother and their home.
"Be good boys," she said to them; "learn all you can, and try to be a credit to your family. Upon you we look for help in the future. Be thrifty, be saving, do not get sick, and remember that, upon your work now, will depend your success in life."
"Good-bye!" cried Nurse Saveria. "When you come back I will have for you the biggest basket of fruit we can pick in the garden of your uncle the canon."
"That you shall, boy," said Uncle Lucien, slipping his last piece of pocket-money into Napoleon's hand. "And take you this, for luck. You will do your best, I know you will, and you'll come back to us a great man. Don't forget your Uncle Lucien, you boy, when you are famous, will you?"
Napoleon smiled through his tears, and made a laughing promise in reply to his uncle's laughing demand. But, for all the fun of the remark, there was yet a strong groundwork of belief beneath this assertion of the Canon Lucien Bonaparte; the old man was a shrewd observer. His friendship for the little Napoleon was strong. And in spite of all the boy's faults,—his temper, his ambition, his sullenness, his carelessness, and his selfishness,—Uncle Lucien still recognized in this nine-year-old nephew an ability that would carry him forward as he grew older.