Notre Dame echoed of the sound of 400 musicians and singers. The young man born in the island of Corsica, moved impatiently forward. Napoleon Bonaparte 35 years old is about to be crowned emperor of France "I found the crown of France in the gutter and I picked it up" (he said). It was December 2, 1804 Napoleon's conquest will extends his empire across almost all Europe and he ruled over 70 million people, not since the ancient Caesars one man held so much power.
"I was born when Corsica was perishing. Thirty thousand Frenchmen spewed on to our shores, drowning the throne of liberty in waves of blood... The cries of the dying, the groans of the oppressed and tears of despair surrounded my cradle from the hour of my birth." Corsica is a new French colony, suspended in the Mediterranean between France and Italy. For centuries Corsican fearlessly resisted invaders Romans, Mores, and Genoies. After French victory Corsican rebels fled to the mountains when they continue to fight on.
Napoleon changed the world. He is the man who rises not in the basis of his blood or his back ground but in the basis of his ability. No one appeared like him or dominated the worlds like he has. What is Napoleon ? It's a hand, the shirt, and a strange hat. If you show the hand, the shirt and the hat in Japan, United States, or France everybody will say Napoleon. He above all ambitious he loved power, like musician love music.
Napoleon mounted to the altar alone, seizing the crown in his own hand and put it to rest in his own head. That morning he quietly told his brother, if only our father could see as now.
In the spring of 1769 Leticia and Carlo Bonaparte was crossing the mountains to travel the interior of the island of Corsica. They were Corsican patriots determine to repel French army that invaded their tiny island nation. The Corsican is about only 100 - 120 thousand people of peasant or shepherd in origin. They had very few fire arms and very little gun powder, that's all they had to defend themselves against the 22 million population of France. The most advance country in Europe that time. The Corsicans never stood a chance after years of fighting leaving dead and wounded, they were defeated. And Leticia and Carlo are going home, Leticia is six months pregnant. That summer Leticia is celebrating the feast of the assumption when she felt her first labor pain. Later that day August 15 1769, she gave birth to a son Napoleon Bonaparte. Born just after the bitter French conquest, Napoleon spends his childhood hating France the nation he would one day rule.
But Napoleon's father Carlo a 22 year old university student readily submitted. Soon he is wearing powdered wigs, embroidered waistcoats and silver buckled shoes. Napoleon never forgave him for betraying his Corsican heritage. He will say's harshly that his father is rather too fun of pleasure. Napoleon is having a grudge for having him submitted. The poor Carlo knew he lost the battle and the French is there and he should live with them and make the best of it.
Carlo began practicing law, one election in Corsican assembly he stood up in the steam of French rulers. But Napoleon rarely had a good thing to say about him. He saved his praise to his mother the beautiful strong-willed Leticia. As a mother he would say she has no equal, Napoleon is fascinated by her and praised her enormously. She is tough and determine woman, 13 times pregnant with eight surviving children. He said that all his success in life was due to the training she gave him. The mother! What a man! Napoleon said. She had a head of a man with the body of a woman. "She sometimes made me go to bed without supper, as if there were nothing to eat in the house. One had to learn to suffer and not let others see it."
Carlo and Leticia own a house in the county as well as one in the city a mark on their status. They were Corsican aristocrats but they are not rich. With eight children they struggle just to get by, in an island that is impoverished in centuries. There was nothing, the ambitious couple believed that Corsica could offer them or to their children only one country could. The country that vanquished their own....France..... click here to continue
next Destiny part II "Napoleone Bonaparte" |
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