Napoleon into an artilleryman nonpareil. The one obstacle to rapid
promotion under du Teil's benevolent eye was the nineteen-year-old's
uncertain health. There was another protracted attack of fever in the final
months of 1788, after which Napoleon wrote to his mother that several
fevers had laid him low; in common with most people in the eighteenth
century, who knew nothing of the anopheles mosquito, he attributed his
attacks of malaria to 'miasmata' arising from the nearby river. In similar
vein he wrote to Archdeacon Lucien on 18 March 1789: 'I have no other
resource but work. I dress but once in eight days; I sleep but little since
my illness; it is incredible; I retire at ten (to save candles) and rise at four
in the morning. I take but one meal a day, at three; that is good for my
health.'
At the beginning of April in the fateful year 1789 du Teil received
word of grain riots in the nearby town of Seurre. Napoleon was among
one hundred officers and men immediately put on the twenty-mile march
to Seurre to quell the disturbances. The rioters dispersed before the
military came on the scene, but Napoleon and the troopers were kept on
for two months, as a warning against any further uprising. After taking
lodgings in the rue Dulac, Napoleon made his mark with the Intendant of
Burgundy, who gave a supper for the officers and asked for the young
Bonaparte as his personal escort on a horseback ride to Verdun-sur-les
Doubs. On 29 May he returned to Auxonne, where he shortly afterwards
wrote a famous letter to Paoli, lamenting that he was born at the very
moment independent Corsica expired:
As the nation was perishing I was born. Thirty thousand Frenchmen
were vomited on to our shores, drowning the throne of liberty in waves
of blood. Such was the odious sight which was the first to strike me.
From my birth, my cradle was surrounded by the cries of the dying,
the groans of the oppressed and tears of despair. You left our island
and with you went all hope of happiness. Slavery was the price of our
submission. Crushed !;!y the triple yoke of the soldier, the law-maker
and the tax inspector," our compatriots live despised.Napoleon liked swimming, but in the summer of 1789 he was seized by
cramp in the Saone and nearly drowned. Superstitiously, he linked his
own near-tragedy with the alarming events taking place that summer in
Paris. On 15 July he wrote to Archdeacon Lucien in high excitement
about the 'astonishing and singular' news reaching them. Soon the
revolutionary current sweeping France affected Auxonne and even the La
Fere regiment. On 19 July the local people rose in revolt, burnt the
register of taxes and destroyed the offices of a Farmer-General. The men