DESTINY chapter I " Corsica "

"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."
　

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



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Destiny part II
"Napoleone Bonaparte"



DESTINY chapter II "Napoleon"

Napoleon age 16
as a Lieutenant in French army

click here to read chapter 1

As a representative of Corsican parliament Carlo traveled to Versailles. There he saw the splendor of French court of all its majesty. French is the envy of Europe. Great Britain, Austria, Prussia (Germany), Spain none have more people or greater wealth. While America is just beginning its experiment on its democracy.

Carlo was an outstretch provence, rumbling of discontent of king Louie the 16th and the aristocratic privileges was no concern of his. The queen Marie Antoinette and the privilege court re-draining France of its precious resources, did not diminished Carlo delight in everything he saw. He dreamed that one day his children would become noble men of glittering of power, when he doesn't have a place. For years Carlo had nourished a plan in Versailles, he saw it will come true.

He worked to secure Napoleon a scholarship to Brienne, a private academy in France. Napoleon set foot in France for the first time in the winter of 1778, A thin sallow nine years old. An accustomed of the warmth Mediterranean, suddenly alone of a windswept plane of northern France. A scholarship boy at the royal military college at Brienne de chateau. He could hardly speak French. For the next five years there will be no holidays there will be no visit home. He had no much friends, he still thought of himself as a gradient subject of an alien king. He thinks of himself as a Corsican. He is surrounded by students who are the children of French aristocrats. And they have nothing in common with this little foreigner. And since he is quite proud, he becomes a loner. When he was in school in Brienne in continental France, where he was very much laughed at and bullied for being a barbarous Corsican, he dreamed all the time of liberating Corsica. But he did something quite exceptional. He conquered his conquerors. He got the better of the French.　

He was 15 when he was promoted to the royal military academy in Paris. Along with the sons of France greatest families he would learn the slender of French civilization. The royal academy was as much as a finishing school. Turning officers into gentlemen as a war college. We were magnificently fed and served, "Bonaparte said". Treated in everyway like officers possess of great wealth. The poor Corsican teenager still felt like an outsider, he entered the world of opulence and lectury, but only served of the few French nobility. One teacher describes him as quiet and solemn frightfully and eager, proud and ambitious and inspiring to everything. He would go far in favorable circumstances his school report said. He began apprenticing as a soldier when he was 16 a second lieutenant. Training in the best artillery unit in the France army. He grew expert in citing a gun handling armours, shot, and deploying men.

His greatest career in military history had began. He feels that the reign will not let him the position he dreamed. The top position is reserve for the noble men and Napoleon came from the minor nobility poor people. Frustrated in his military ambition Bonaparte dreamed to be famous as an author. He wrote the brief history of Corsica even tried to write a Nobel. He knows that he is capable of great things, he thinks that he is distant for greatness. But in that point how can he possibly believe it. "Always alone among men, I come home to dream by myself and to give myself over to all the forces of my melancholy," Napoleon wrote. "My thoughts dwell on death... What fury drives me to wish for my own destruction? No doubt because I see no place for myself in this world.".... click here to continue

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DESTINY part III
" The Revolution"

DESTINY chapter III " The Revolution"

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 On July 14 1789 Paris erupted. Angry crowd storms to the streets crying equality, liberty, and brotherhood. France was thrown into turmoil. The monarchy itself shuttered into the edge of destruction. The defiant absolute assembly changed the right of the king. Stripped nobles and clergy of their ancient privileges fracturing the social order that endured for centuries. After years of injustice and inequality the revolution had began it would take years before it could end. As the revolution gained momentum Bonaparte was serving in the army far from Paris. He distrusted the violent Mob, but welcome the changes forming the country.

 He is certainly not a revolutionary for the beginning of the revolution. But Bonaparte welcomes the revolution as good news, it has almost a religious impact for him because all of the sudden he thinks the revolution will open French society. It abolished privileges, it put  the hierarchy in condensation in which Napoleon suffered while he was growing up. Bonaparte is the man of his time, being a 20 years old on 1789 is very important. Napoleon destiny and the destiny of the whole country became the same.

In the summer of 1792 Bonaparte was on leave in Paris. He witness the last grasp of French monarchy. In June the Mob stormed the palace and forced the king to wear the red revolutionary bond. In august the Mob massacred all the kings Swiss guard, king Louie the XVI was dethrone. The French republic was proclaimed that fall. Napoleon wants to be part to this new world, he wants to play a role and he will starts where the place he knows very well..... Corsica.

Bonaparte was 23 an idealistic revolutionary, he took leave of absence on the French army and turn to Corsica. The French republic makes Corsica apart from France and given Corsicans the right and liberty of France citizens. Bonaparte a lieutenant of the island national guard threw him self into Corsican politics.

Pasquale Paoli is the islands governor, Pauli is Bonaparte childhood hero. The leader of the Corsican war against France. Now Bonaparte dreamed of rising to power standing on Paoli's side. But he bitterly disappointed, Paoli did not trust him. "A big inexperience boy".... Paoli called him. The Corsican patriot called Bonaparte too ambitious, too self centered, too sympathetic to France.

Bonaparte and Paoli are on totally different wavelengths. Paoli retains the idea that Corsica should be independent. By this time Napoleon Bonaparte is perfectly comfortable with  Corsica that is part of revolutionary France. Bonaparte soon became the leader of a faction opposed to Paoli. Clan rivalry run deep in the islands which intensifies the political struggle between the two men. Paoli's partisan and Bonaparte were soon at war, in the end Paoli proved too strong. Bonaparte home was sacked he was forced to flee to the mountains. The Corsican Assembly declared Bonaparte and his entire family "traitors and enemies of the Fatherland, condemned to perpetual execration and infamy." Bonaparte no longer had the right to live in Corsica. He had been given a death sentence by his own people....click here to continue

DESTINY chapter IV
"Toulon"

DESTINY chapter IV " Toulon"

Toulon Fort St Louis

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Bonaparte no longer had the right to live in Corsica, he had been given a death sentence by his own people. His idealism has shaken He wrote to his brother, among so many conflicting ideas the honest man is confused and distressed. "Since one must take side and one must choose which is victorious. Considering the alternative it is better to eat than be eaten". The defeat in Corsica, the break from his hero Paoli had toughened him, made him shrewd and turn him toward France. From the time he had this break up with Paoli's Corsica he is French, he want to be French.

On June 10, 1793 he set sail for France with his widowed mother, three brothers and three sisters – a refugee family carrying with them all they owned in the world. Twenty-four years old, he was banished from the land of his birth forever.

Bonaparte returned to France to find the French is fighting among themselves. The king had been executed the queen and thousand more followed him to the guillotine. The city is in revolt and uprising in the provinces Maximilien Robespierre was in charge now. He suspended the constitution, bow to save the Republic from his enemies by any cause. The revolution turned into the terror.

Torned by civil war France was also at war with almost all with Europe, Austria, Spain, Prussia (Germany), and Great Britain, are bend to destroy the new French republic. While French radicals promised all people to rises against their rulers. Reinstated in the army as a captain Bonaparte was ordered to Toulon a city of 28 thousand people in the southern cost of France, who has rebelled against the Republic throwing its port open to the English. The British fleet defended the city from the harbor. The 28 year old Bonaparte knew how to drive them out. He argued, if his soldier seized the heights commanding the harbor they can bombared the fleet, drive them away and the city will fall. It was a simple plan but none of the generals would listen.

The generals in Toulon are totally unconfidence or little worst. Finally one confident general showed up and listen to Napoleon plans and said naturally. This could be Bonaparte first great chance. With the aristocratic fleeing the country there was suddenly a vacuum, an opportunity of rapid promotion of soldiers who can proved themselves under fire. Bonaparte fought bravely leading his men assaulted the fort guarding the heights. He Suffered a wound in the tight from the enemy bayonet. Ten ships went up in flames and the British fled. Toulon is recaptured and Bonaparte is promoted. In just three months he has risen from captain to Brigadier general.....click here to continue.

DESTINY chapter V
"canon"

DESTINY chapter V "Canon"

click here to read chapter 1

The Republic continues to fight for its life, still crashing its enemies from its border and still having turmoil at home. France was in chaos threatened in all sides. Maximilien Robespierre showed no mercy in bringing up unity and order. Liberty (he said) can not be secured unless criminals lose their heads. Determine to make his voice heard Bonaparte wrote a political pact to Robespierre. The young soldier hated the terror but he hated chaos even more. Bonaparte is really a man of order, for him order is to serve ideal, exactly the ideal of Robespeirre. It is necessary to suspend liberties in the name of liberty, to save liberty and to save the republic it is necessary to suspend individual liberty. In the summer of 1794 Robespeirre government fell. Now it is the time for the makers of terror to die including Robespierre.

In the spring of 1795 Bonaparte headed for Paris. Now a Brigadier general he was determine to raise higher. France had a new constitutional government. The guillotine, the riot in the street, the war in the frontier all seems forgotten. Bonaparte is frequently in the salons were the women dominated the Paris high society will held court. The women here (he wrote his brother) is the center of importance, here alone all the places on earth they appeared the reign of government. But they little to do with him, he is just ambitious young soldier. I can still pictured him (one noble woman remembered) he wore badly dirty booths and a nasty round hat pulled down over his eyes, an overall sickly effect created by his thinnest and his yellow complexion. Bonaparte seems to be in the dead end, he was desperate for the promotion but no one paid any attention. If this continue (he wrote his brother) I shall end by not stepping aside when the courage rusted pass.

Then political turmoil once again gave his chance, mobs of Parisians joined by national guardsmen bent on toppling the Republic. And the government called on Bonaparte to repel the attack. When the rebellion broke out there are no other competent general in Paris that time except Bonaparte, a man of conviction they put him in.

Napoleon will use all his weapon, and nobody used cannons to the mob before. He delayed to shoot until he can see the white of their eyes and when he did no body is standing...the enemy attack us (he wrote his brother) we killed many of them and now all is quite I could not be happier.."They put the matter in my hands," Napoleon recalled, "and then set to discussing whether or not I had the right to repel force by force. 'Do you intent to wait,' said I, 'until the people give you permission to fire at them? You have appointed me, and I am compromised. It is only fair that I should do the business my own way.' On that I left the lawyers to drown themselves in their own flood of words, and got the troops on the move."...click here to continue

DESTINY chapter VI
"Josephine"

DESTINY chapter VI "Josephine"

Marie Joseph Rose Beauharnais

click here to read chapter 1

Three weeks later he was made a full general commander of the army of the interior he was 26. Bonaparte now is a man to be recon with. He was driving to Paris with the fine carriage, wearing new clothes, trenching himself with Cologne. The young sophisticated general was no ladies man, but he had fallen in love, her name is Marie Joseph Rose Beauharnais. Everyone called her Rose but Bonaparte called her Josephine. She was an Aristocrat from the French colony of Martinique, a 32 year old widow with two children, which is trying to make in Paris alone. She was known to be a woman of refinement, charm and grace. It was said that she even went to bed gracefully. Bonaparte was dazzled by her..I was naturally timid among women (he said) but madam Beauharnais was the first women who gave me confidence.

Josephine married young, she lost her husband in the guillatine and fell to somebody who helped her out from prison. She had an affair with deferent men in the high level of society .But no one stood far from Paul François Jean Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (Paul Barras) the most powerful figure of the new government. Josephine was his mistress, the woman of influence in the most fashionable salons in Paris. Her sexual experience fired Napoleons passions. He saw her in a world of power she is at the center of the society, she had all these connections. Someone who could be so useful to him, and he was madly in love with her.

Martinique island
 in the CaribbreanThe French
 arrived in 1635,
 built permanent settlements,

Josephine live in a cottage set in a pleasant garden, some say's it was Barras who paid the rent, but Barras is going tired with her and now Bonaparte visiting her there. Josephine seemed amused by her new lover, although she knew how to please him, she did not return his passion. When Bonaparte proposed marriage, she hesitated. She was not attracted to him at all and that she told her friends later that she prolongs time she had to overcome a feeling that repugnant. He was so serious and he had no sense of humor. But she knew her beauty is vanishing already her teeth are badly , getting wrinkle. Napoleon doesn't see it, but others can, and she sees it. Her look fading she knew she needed a protector on march 9 1796 Napoleon Bonaparte and Marie Joseph rose Beauharnais were married....click here to continue

DESTINY chapter VIII
"Love"

DESTINY chapter VII "Love"

click here to read chapter 1

Bonaparte was sent to the Italian Alps Josephine's former lover Paul Barras had helped him to win an appointment as a supreme commander of all French forces in Italy. His assignment is to challenge the Empire of Austria and their Italian allies. He had never commanded an army before, young and untested no one expected very much from him specially his own generals. Everyone make's fun with him before he gets their. This little general perhaps owns his command from his wife. But when he arrives the veterans who make fun with him understand exactly he is in charge. Do not know why (one of his general said) but the little bastard scares me.

Bonaparte's army was no condition to win the battles. It had been stagnating under incompetent commanders in the foothills of the Alps for almost two years. Soldiers (he proclaimed) you were naked and ill fed no fame shines on you. I will lead you to the most fertile planes in the world, rich provinces, great cities will line in your power. You will find there honor, glory and riches.He really installed them, he was a terrific actor. He was capable of laughing and smiling and then suddenly he was passionate, inspiring feared, horror and anger.

On April 2 1796. Bonaparte lead his army forward. he was badly out numbered 36 thousand French soldiers against 38thousands Austrian and their allies 25thousand Piedmantese(from Piedmont nothwest of Itailian). Bonaparte plan to isolate the the Austrian from Piedmantese then conquer them separately. He would strike first at Piedmont. In just two weeks he won six battles, took thousands of prisoners and broke the back of Piedmont army. One Peidmanteses officer once complaint. "they send a young mad man who attacked right, left and from the rear this is intolerable way of making war." On April 26 Piedmont surrendered. Bonaparte amended gold and silver and paid his troops ( the first real money they have seen in years) soldiers he said we thank you.

When Bonaparte led his soldier into battle he never stop of thinking Josephine writing her letter after letter day after day. Not a day goes by without me loving you (he wrote) not a night without you holding my heart, I've cursed the glory and ambition which keeps me from the souls of my life whenever I am troubled. How things will turn out I put my hand to these hearts were throbs you are likeness I have to look at it and my love is in perfect happiness. Josephine was sometimes read his letter aloud to her friends, Bonaparte ( she told them) is so amusing....click here to continue

DESTINY chapter VIII
"little corporal"

DESTINY chapter VIII "little corporal"

click here to read chapter 1

With Piedmont defeated they pursue the Austrians who retreated to the east, bewildered by the 26 years old general and his new way of making war. He attacks everyday, he attack when its snows, he attack at night. its not the way the game is played. He looks for the enemy, fights it and when they assumed he stops he continued, the next they he fights again, it surprises them.

As the Austrian fled, their rare guards hope's to slow Bonaparte down by making a stand at the little Italian town of Lodi. They fortified a narrow wooden bridge with fourteen canons and three battalions and dared Bonaparte to cross it. The general ordered a simple frontal assault on the bridge everything will depend on the courage of his men. He earned their admiration with his rapid string of victories. Now he would find out their faith. Napoleon is a master in motivation his soldiers. His troops are chasing the Austrian now by weeks. There are no strategy at all, the troops are coming so enthusiastically quick, it surprises the enemy. The question of enthusiasm is they drove them selves into it, with the risk of death. With his men facing withering enemy fire Bonaparte was unthinkable this is the man with absolute courage, he's there wherever his needed if he is needed in the very front to encourage people he is there, he takes physical risks. Even the cannon balls fell close to him (this happen in several occasions) his not afraid.

The French faded halfway across the bridge and fall back under a vicious hell of fire. Then one last charge and they've acrossed. The Austrian gun fell silent, they think that they are safe across the bridge but when the French able to crossed it they fled throughout. But it was not a great victory, the Austrian army had in fact escaped but Bonaparte had won the respect and devotion of his men. He came dummy and covered with gun smoke, the troops liked that and they start calling him little corporal. This is the moment when he becomes convinced that he has a lucky star and his destiny had chosen him to accomplish great things. They have not seen anything yet (Bonaparte told his generals) in our time no one had a slightest conception of what is great, it is up to me to give them an example. The battle on Lodi convinced Bonaparte he is the man of destiny. From that moment (he said) I fore saw of what I might be already I felt earth flee from beneath me as if I were being carried into the sky.....the end