NAPOLEON TO HIS UNCLE FESCH.
"My dear Uncle,—I write to inform you of the journey of my dear father over Brienne to Paris, where he has gone in order to take Marianne (afterwards Eliza of Tuscany) to St. Cyr, and to re-establish his health. He arrived here on the 21st with Lucian, and the two demoiselles whom you saw: he has left Lucian here. He is nine years old, and three feet, eleven inches, ten lines high: he is in the sixth in Latin, and will learn the various branches taught in this school; he shows much talent and willingness, and we may hope that something will come of him (que ce sera un bon sujet). [Lucian was the only one of the family who scorned a crown.] He is healthy, he is strong, lively, and thoughtless, and, in the meantime, his masters are content with him. He knows French very well, and has completely forgotten his Italian; but he will write to you along with this, and I shall say nothing to him, that you may see how matters stand with him.
"I hope he will write to you oftener now, than he did when he was in Autun.... I am confident my brother Joseph has not written to you yet. How could you expect it? He sends my dear father, when he does write to him, at most two lines. He is, in truth, quite changed. He writes to me, however, frequently. He is in the rhetoric class; and he would do better if he were diligent, for the master told my dear father that there was no one in the college (at Autun) who showed more talent than he in physics, rhetoric, or philosophy, or who could make so good a translation. In regard to the profession he is to follow, you know he at first chose the clerical. He kept by this resolution up till the present hour, but he now wishes to serve the king. In this he is wrong, on several grounds.
"1. As my father remarks, he has not courage to face the dangers of a battle; his weak health does not allow of his enduring the fatigues of a campaign; and my brother looks at the life of a soldier only from the garrison side. Yes, my dear brother will make an excellent officer in garrison. Well, as he is light-minded, and therefore clever at making frivolous compliments, he will always, with his talents, make a good figure in society—but in a battle? It is about this my dear father is dubious.
Qu'importe à des guerriers ces frivoles avantages?
Que sont tous ces trésors sans celui du courage?
A ce prix fussiez vous aussi beau qu'Adonis,
Du Dieu même du Pinde eussiez-vous l'éloquence,
Que sont tous ces dons sans celui de la vaillance?
"2. He has received an education for the clerical profession; it is too late to forget it. The Bishop of Autun would have given him a large benefice, and he was certain to have become a bishop. What an advantage for the family! The Bishop of Autun has done all he could to prevail on him to stay, and has promised him that he never would have cause to repent it. In vain!—he persists. I commend his resolution, if he has a decided taste for this profession—the finest of all professions—and if the Great Mover of human things (le Grand Moteur des choses humaines) had, in forming him, given him, as He has given me, a decided inclination for a military life.