Footnote 4: Du Casse, Supplément à la Correspondence de Napoléon Ier, Vol. X, p. 50. Masson, I, 79-84.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 5: This letter, which is without date, is printed in Coston, as taken from the newspapers; again in a revised form in Nasica: Mémoires sur l'enfance et la jeunesse de Napoléon, p. 71, who claimed to have collated it with the original; and again in Jung: Bonaparte et son temps, who gives as his reference, Archives de la guerre, preserving exactly the form given by Nasica. The Napoleon papers of the War Department were freely, and I believe entirely, put into my hands for examination. This letter was not among them; in fact, my efforts to confirm the references of Jung were sadly ineffectual.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 6: Authorities as before for this and the five chapters following.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 7: This is the date given by himself on the slip of paper headed "Époques de ma vie" and contained in the Fesch papers, now deposited in the Laurentian Library at Florence. Here and there the text is very difficult to decipher, but the line "Parti pour l'école de Paris, le 30 Octobre 1784" is perfectly legible. Las Cases, in the Mémorial, Vol. I, p. 160, represents Napoleon as quoting Keralio in declaring that it was not for his birth or his attainments but for the qualities he discerned in the boy that he sent him with imperfect preparation to Paris.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 8: Mémoires du roi Joseph, I, 29.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 9: The examiner in mathematics was the great Laplace.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 10: Taken from the apocryphal Memoirs of the Count d'Og ... previously mentioned. See Masson: Napoléon inconnu, I, 123; Chuquet, I, 260; Jung, I, 125.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 11: Las Cases, I, 112. Napoleon confessed his inability to learn German, but prided himself on his historical knowledge.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 12: For an amusing caricature by a comrade at Paris, see Chuquet: La jeunesse de Napoléon, I, 262. The legend is: "Buonaparte, cours, vole au secours de Paoli pour le tirer des mains de ses ennemis."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 13: Masson (Napoléon inconnu, Vol. I, p. 160) denies all the statements of this paragraph. He likewise proves to his own satisfaction that Bonaparte was neither in Lyons nor in Douay at this time. The narrative here given is based on Coston and on Jung, who follows the former in his reprint of the documents, giving the very dubious reference, Mss. Archives de la guerre. Although these manuscripts could not be found by me, I am not willing to discard Jung's authority completely nor to impugn his good faith. Men in office frequently play strange pranks with official papers, and these may yet be found. Moreover, there is some slight collateral evidence. See Vieux: Napoleon à Lyon, p. 4, and Souvenirs à l'usage des habitants de Douay. Douay, 1822.[Back to Main Text]