and by now had a distinct taste for Rousseau and Montesquieu. But also,
once again, the student of Napoleon is confronted by a number of
anecdotes of doubtful credibility. He is alleged to have gone to the
Champ de Mars in March 1785 to see the balloonist Blanchard ascend in
the type of hot-air balloon made famous by the Montgolfier brothers.
The story goes that Blanchard kept postponing the moment of take-off,
so that Napoleon became impatient, cut the ropes keeping the balloon
earthbound, and thus caused a scandal for which he was punished. But
the sober historical record finds nothing more to say than that on 15 May
1785 he was confirmed by the Archbishop of Paris, and on the z6th of
that month he took part in a review presided over by the Minister of War,
Marshal Segur.
For the first time in his life Napoleon made a true friend. Alexandre
Des Mazis, was an ardent royalist from a military family in Strasbourg,
who was in the year ahead of him and a senior cadet in charge of
musketry training. He needed to draw on the resources of this friendship
when news came that Carlo Buonaparte had died and the family was in
straitened circumstances. Sustained pain and vomiting had led the ailing
Carlo to consult physicians in Paris, Montpellier and Aix-en-Provence,
but they were powerless against cancer. Carlo died on 24 February 1785,
leaving Napoleon in financial limbo. He wrote to his uncle Lucien, the
archdeacon, asking him to sustain the family until he qualified as an
officer, and set to work to cram two or three years' work into as many
months.
Carlo's death caused Napoleon considerable financial anxiety but no
great sorrow or grief. He despised his father and could not see that he had
any achievements to his credit. The emotions he felt seem to have been
indifference and relief. In 1 8oz he rejected a proposal by Montpellier
Municipal Council to erect a monument to his father in these words:
'Forget it: let us not trouble the peace of the dead. Leave their ashes in
peace. I also lost my grandfather, my great-grandfather, why is nothing
done for them? This leads too far.' Much later he said Carlo's death was a
happy accident, for he was an unsubtle political trimmer and in the post-
1789 quicksands would certainly have made the kinds of blunders that
would have finished off Napoleon's career before it got started. Yet
Napoleon, especially as a Corsican, could not simply slough off his need
for a father; at this stage he 'solved' the problem by elevating Paoli to the
position of father-figure.
Napoleon immersed himself in his studies, now desperate to make the
grade as an artillery officer. Entry to the elite corps of the artillery was
normally a two-stage process. First came an examination on the first
marcin
(Marcin)
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