What trifles seem, at times, to alter the current of human affairs!  Had his father acted thus, the young Napoleon would in all probability have entered the military or naval service of Great Britain; he might have shared Paoli’s enthusiasm for the land of his adoption, and have followed the Corsican hero in his enterprises against the French Revolution, thenceforth figuring in history merely as a greater Marlborough, crushing the military efforts of democratic France, and luring England into a career of Continental conquest.  Monarchy and aristocracy would have gone unchallenged, except within the “natural limits” of France; and the other nations, never shaken to their inmost depths, would have dragged on their old inert fragmentary existence.

The decision of Charles Buonaparte altered the destiny of Europe.  He determined that his eldest boy, Joseph, should enter the Church, and that Napoleon should be a soldier.  His perception of the characters of his boys was correct.  An anecdote, for which the elder brother is responsible, throws a flood of light on their temperaments.  The master of their school arranged a mimic combat for his pupils—­Romans against Carthaginians.  Joseph, as the elder was ranged under the banner of Rome, while Napoleon was told off among the Carthaginians; but, piqued at being chosen for the losing side, the child fretted, begged, and stormed until the less bellicose Joseph agreed to change places with his exacting junior.  The incident is prophetic of much in the later history of the family.

Its imperial future was opened up by the deft complaisance now shown by Charles Buonaparte.  The reward for his speedy submission to France was soon forthcoming.  The French commander in Corsica used his influence to secure the admission of the young Napoleon to the military school of Brienne in Champagne; and as the father was able to satisfy the authorities not only that he was without fortune, but also that his family had been noble for four generations, Napoleon was admitted to this school to be educated at the charges of the King of France (April, 1779).  He was now, at the tender age of nine, a stranger in a strange land, among a people whom he detested as the oppressors of his countrymen.  Worst of all, he had to endure the taunt of belonging to a subject race.  What a position for a proud and exacting child!  Little wonder that the official report represented him as silent and obstinate; but, strange to say, it added the word “imperious.”  It was a tough character which could defy repression amidst such surroundings.  As to his studies, little need be said.  In his French history he read of the glories of the distant past (when “Germany was part of the French Empire"), the splendours of the reign of Louis XIV., the disasters of France in the Seven Years’ War, and the “prodigious conquests of the English in India.”  But his imagination was kindled from other sources.  Boys of pronounced character have always owed far more to their private