Brienne anyway, in hopes of getting the Bertons to take on the eight
year-old Lucien.
The farewell act of patronage Marbeuf had performed for Carlo was
getting Elisa placed with the nuns at St-Cyr in Paris. Hoping to kill two
birds with one stone, Carlo arrived at Brienne on 21 June 1784 en route
to Paris with Elisa. Also in tow was Lucien, who had been with Joseph at
Autun since the year before. Apart from generally gloomy news about the
family's finances, Carlo had three further items of bad news to impart to
Napoleon: Letizia was not in the best of health, having contracted
puerperal fever after the birth of Caroline; Lucien was coming to stay at
Brienne for some months; and Joseph had decided he had no vocation, so
wanted to quit his studies as a seminarist.
Sullenly Napoleon accepted the custodianship of the now nine-year
old Lucien. The notoriously bad later relationship between the two
brothers seems to have had its origin here, for Lucien reported that
Napoleon was broody and withdrawn, greeted him without affection and
showed him no tenderness or kindness. Lucien deeply resented this and
always said it was because of Napoleon's attitude that he (Lucien) felt the
greatest repugnance in bowing to him when Emperor.
Carlo's visit is described in some detail in the first authentic letter
written by Napoleon, on 25 June 1784, to his uncle Nicolo Paravicini.
Napoleon was outraged by Joseph's ambition to join the artillery after
leaving the seminary, for the notorious inter-service rivalry meant that
was probably the end of his own ambitions to enter the Navy. Although,
therefore, we must realize that Napoleon had his own reasons for the
unflattering portrait he painted of Joseph, the analysis still shows very
shrewd insight into his elder brother's failings. The lucid, cold, pragmatic
adult Napoleon is essentially on display here. He pointed out that Joseph
had poor health and lacked physical courage, that he had not faced the
reality of Army life but thought only of the social side of garrison
existence. What a pity that Joseph was abandoning a career where, with
Bishop Marbeufs patronage, he too could soon have a bishopric. And
how was Joseph going to make the grade, he who had shown no aptitude
for mathematics? Even if he were not congenitally lazy, had he fully
realized that he would have to spend five years learning his putative
profession as an engineer?
At some stage Letizia also visited Napoleon at Brienne and was
appalled at how thin and cadaverous he was. This must have been on a
visit distinct from Carlo's, though careless historians have run the two
together. But one visit Napoleon looked forward to with more trepidation
was the arrival in September of M. Reynaud des Monts, the sub-
marcin
(Marcin)
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