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 1 784 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Napoleon was broody and withdrawn, greeted him without affection and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-

23

inspector of military schools. On 22 September Des Monts examined

Napoleon and found him qualified to enter the military school in Paris.

The only question now remaining was whether a place would be found.

Napoleon did not rate his chances highly, as he thought his lack of the

classical languages would stand between him and the Ecole Royale

Militaire in Paris. Fortunately, at this very juncture the Ministry of War

authorized a special intake of candidates outstanding in mathematics.

Early in October word came through that Napoleon and three

schoolfellows had been selected for the school in Paris; Lucien could have

the Brienne berth after all.

This was the end of Napoleon's naval ambitions, once so intense that

he actually thought of applying to the Royal Navy in England for a

cadetship. To this unlikely historical might-have-been can be added a

more sombre possibility. In expressing his continuing enthusiasm for the

Navy in 1 784, Napoleon mentioned his ambition of sailing with the great
French navigator La Perouse, then preparing for a Pacific expedition to

rival those of Captain Cook. La Perouse sailed in 1785 but three years

later was shipwrecked with the loss of all hands at Vanikoro Island in the

south-west Pacific, between the Solomons and the New Hebrides. But for

an administrative decision in Paris, the great European conqueror could