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The lindbergh baby kidnapping.One of the many unsolved cases still trying to be solved to this day.I learned about this topic in only the fitfh grade. We were going to be working on a project about unsolved mysteries. There were several topics, I forgot because it was three years ago, but I chose the lindbergh baby kidnapping and I can never forget about it.Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., 20-month-old son, (yes only 20 months year old. He was a one year old, not even two yet.) of the famous aviator and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was kidnapped about 9:00 p.m., on March 1st, 1932, from the nursery on the second floor of the Lindbergh home near Hopewell, New Jersey. The child’s nurse, Betty Gow, discovered the absense of the baby a little later and notified the parents immediatly. They also found a ransom note demanding $50,000 if they ever wanted to see their son again.During the search at the kidnapping scene, traces of mud were found on the floor of the nursery. Footprints, impossible to measure, were found under the nursery window. Two sections of the ladder had been used in reaching the window, one of the two sections was split or broken where it joined the other, indicating that the ladder had broken during the ascent or descent. There were no blood stains in or about the nursery, nor were there any fingerprints.Household and estate employees were questioned and investigated. Colonel Lindbergh asked friends to communicate with the kidnappers, and they made widespread appeals for the kidnappers to start negotiations. Various underworld characters were dealt with in attempts to contact the kidnappers, and numerous clues were advanced and exhausted.A second ransom note was received by Colonel Lindbergh on March 6, 1932, (postmarked Brooklyn, New York, March 4), in which the ransom demand was increased to $70,000. A police conference was then called by the governor at Trenton, New Jersey, which was attended by prosecuting officials, police authorities, and government representatives. Various theories and policies of procedure were discussed. Private investigators also were employed by Colonel Lindbergh’s attorney, Colonel Henry Breckenridge.real photo of the ransom note ^^The third ransom note was received by Colonel Lindbergh’s attorney on March 8, informing that an intermediary appointed by the Lindberghs would not be accepted and requesting a note in a newspaper. On the same date, Dr. John F. Condon, Bronx, New York City, a retired school principal, published in the “Bronx Home News” an offer to act as go-between and to pay an additional $1,000 ransom. The following day the fourth ransom note was received by Dr. Condon, which indicated he would be acceptable as a go-between. This was approved by Colonel Lindbergh. About March 10, 1932, Dr. Condon received $70,000 in cash as ransom, and immediately started negotiations for payment through newspaper columns, using the code name “Jafsie.”About 8:30 p.m., on March 12, after receiving an anonymous telephone call, Dr. Condon received the fifth ransom note, delivered by Joseph Perrone, a taxicab driver, who received it from an unidentified stranger. The message stated that another note would be found beneath a stone at a vacant stand, 100 feet from an outlying subway station. This note, the sixth, was found by Condon, as indicated. Following instructions therein, the doctor met an unidentified man, who called himself “John,” at Woodlawn Cemetery, near 233rd Street and Jerome Avenue. They discussed payment of the ransom money. The stranger agreed to furnish a token of the child’s identity. Condon was accompanied by a bodyguard, except while talking to “John.” During the next few days, Dr. Condon repeated his advertisements, urging further contact and stating his willingness to pay the ransom.A baby’s sleeping suit, as a token of identity, and a seventh ransom note were received by Dr. Condon on March 16. The suit was delivered to Colonel Lindbergh and later identified. Condon continued his advertisements. The eighth ransom note was received by Condon on March 21, insisting on complete compliance and advising that the kidnapping had been planned for a year.On March 29, Betty Gow, the Lindbergh nurse, found the infant’s thumb guard, worn at the time of the kidnapping, near the entrance to the estate. The following day the ninth ransom note was received by Condon, threatening to increase the demand to $100,000 and refusing a code for use in newspaper columns. The tenth ransom note, received by Dr. Condon, on April 1, 1932 instructed him to have the money ready the following night, to which Condon replied by an ad in the Press. The eleventh ransom note was delivered to Condon on April 2, 1932, by an unidentified taxi driver who said he received it from an unknown man. Dr. Condon found the twelfth ransom note under a stone in front of a greenhouse at 3225 East Tremont Avenue, Bronx, New York, as instructed in the eleventh note.Shortly thereafter, on the same evening, by following the instructions contained in the twelfth note, Condon again met whom he believed to be “John” to reduce the demand to $50,000. This amount was handed to the stranger in exchange for a receipt and the thirteenth note, containing instructions to the effect that the kidnapped child could be found on a boat named “Nellie” near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The stranger then walked north into the park woods. The following day an unsuccessful search for the baby was made near Martha’s Vineyard. The search was later repeated. Dr. Condon was positive that he would recognize “John” if he ever saw him again.On May 12, 1932, the body of the kidnapped baby was accidentally found, partly buried, and badly decomposed, about four and a half miles southeast of the Lindbergh home, 45 feet from the highway, near Mount Rose, New Jersey, in Mercer County. The discovery was made by William Allen, an assistant on a truck driven by Orville Wilson. The head was crushed, there was a hole in the skull and some of the body members were missing. The body was positively identified and cremated at Trenton, New Jersey, on May 13, 1932. The Coroner’s examination showed that the child had been dead for about two months and that death was caused by a blow on the head.The Investigation: 1932-1934On March 2, 1932, after a conference with the Attorney General, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had contacted the headquarters of the New Jersey State Police at Trenton, New Jersey. He officially informed the organization that the U.S. Department of Justice would afford Colonel H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, the assistance and cooperation of the FBI in bringing about the apprehension of the parties responsible for the kidnapping. He advised the New Jersey State Police that they could call upon the Bureau for any facilities or resources which the latter might be capable of extending. The special agent in charge of the New York City Office of the Bureau, which at that time covered the New Jersey district, was instructed accordingly and, upon instructions from the Director, the special agent in charge communicated with the New Jersey State Police and the New York City Police, offering any assistance which the Bureau might be able to lend in this matter.During the next few weeks the Bureau was acting merely in an auxiliary capacity, there being no federal jurisdiction. However, on May 13, 1932, the President directed that all governmental investigative agencies should place themselves at the disposal of the state of New Jersey and that the FBI should serve as a clearinghouse and coordinating agency for all investigations in this case conducted by federal investigative units.On May 23, 1932, the FBI in New York City informed banks in greater New York that the Bureau was the coordinating agency for all governmental activity in the case. A close watch for ransom money was requested.The New Jersey State Police announced on May 26, 1932, the offer of a reward not to exceed $25,000 for information resulting in the apprehension and conviction of the kidnapper or kidnappers. In compliance with a request made by Colonel Schwarzkopf, copies of this notice of reward were forwarded by the FBI to all law enforcement officials and agencies throughout the United States.On June 10, 1932, Violet Sharpe, a waitress in the home of Mrs. Lindbergh’s mother, Mrs. Dwight Morrow, who had been under investigation by the authorities, committed suicide by swallowing poison when she was about to be requestioned. However, her movements on the night of March 1, 1932, had been carefully checked and it was soon definitely ascertained that she had no connection with the abduction.In September, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt stated in a meeting with Director Hoover that all work on the case be centralized in the Department of Justice. He requested the Director to convey his views to Attorney General Cummings with the suggestion that the Attorney General make a request of the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), either through the President or directly, for a detailed report of all work performed by the IRS Intelligence Unit. On October 19, 1933, it was officially announced that the FBI would have exclusive jurisdiction in so far as the Federal Government was concerned in the handling of any investigative features of the case.The President’s Proclamation requiring the return to the Treasury of all gold and gold certificates was a valuable aid in the case, inasmuch as $40,000 of the ransom money had been paid in gold certificates and, at the time of the Proclamation, a large portion of this money was known to be outstanding. Therefore, this phase of the investigation was emphasized.On January 17, 1934, a circular letter was issued by the New York City Bureau Office to all banks and their branches in New York City, requesting an extremely close watch for the ransom certificates and, in February 1934, all Bureau Offices were supplied with copies of the Bureau’s revised pamphlet containing the serial numbers of ransom bills. The New York City Bureau Office distributed copies of this pamphlet to each employee handling currency in banks, clearinghouses, grocery stores in certain selected communities, insurance companies, gasoline filling stations, airports, department stores, post offices, and telegraph companies.Following the distribution of these booklets containing the serial number of the ransom currency, there were also prepared and similarly distributed by the Bureau currency key cards which, in convenient form, set forth the inclusive serial numbers of all of the ransom notes which had been paid. This was followed by frequent personal contacts with bank officials and with individual employees in an effort to keep alive their interest.Prior to this time, the passing of ransom bills had been reported to either the FBI, the New Jersey State Police, or the New York City Police Department, none of which had complete information on this point. Therefore, arrangements were effected whereby investigation of all such ransom bills detected in the future could be immediately conducted jointly by representatives of the three interested agencies.One of the by-products of the case was a mass of misinformation received from well-meaning but uninformed, highly imaginative individuals, and a deluge of letters written by demented persons, publicity seekers, and frauds. It was essential, however, that all possible clues, regardless of the prospect of success, be carefully followed, and it was impossible in the vast majority of instances to determine at the inception whether they would be material or false.On March 4, 1932, a con man named Gaston B. Means was approached by Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean, of Washington, D.C., who felt that she might be of material assistance to Colonel Lindbergh in procuring the return of his child. Mrs. McLean had become acquainted with Means as a result of some investigative work which means had performed for her husband some years before. Means informed her that he felt certain he could secure a contact with the kidnappers inasmuch as he had been invited to participate in a “big kidnapping” some weeks before but had declined. Means claimed that his friend was responsible for the Lindbergh kidnapping. The following day, Means reported to Mrs. McLean that he had made a contact with the persons who had the child. He successfully induced Mrs. McLean to hand over to him $100,000, to be used in paying the ransom which he said had been doubled. Until April 17, 1932, he kept Mrs. McLean waiting, daily expecting the return of the child. During this period, he purported to be effecting negotiations with the alleged leader of the kidnappers, whom he called “The Fox.” Mrs. McLean finally requested the return of the $100,000 and additional money which she had advanced him for “expenses.” When he failed to do so, the case was turned over to the FBI. Means and “The Fox,” who was found to be Norman T. Whitaker, a disbarred Washington attorney, were apprehended, and Means was later convicted of embezzlement and larceny after trust, and sentenced to serve 15 years in a federal penitentiary. Whitaker and Means were later convicted of conspiracy to defraud, and were sentenced to serve two years each in a federal penitentiary.There were other attempted frauds which required extensive investigations before they could be completely eliminated from consideration in connection with the Lindbergh case.In all, there were literally thousands of leads in all sections of the United States which were followed to their definite conclusions by the Bureau. The results of all these investigations, no matter how trivial, were reported. The activities of the known and suspected members of the so-called “Purple Gang” of Detroit, and various rumors and allegations concerning this gang were carefully and thoroughly investigated. Numerous registries of boats were examined in a fruitless endeavor to locate the boat “Nellie,” on which the baby was to have been found according to the 13th and last ransom note handed to Dr. Condon at the time he paid the ransom money to “John.” Records of cemetery employees who were employed in various cemeteries in certain sections of New York City and near Hopewell, New Jersey, were examined. Information accumulated in various other kidnapping and extortion cases handled by the FBI was examined in closest detail and studied with particular reference to any bearing they might have upon the solution of the Lindbergh case. Hundreds of photographs and descriptive data of known criminals of all types and other possible suspects were exhibited to the few eye-witnesses in this case in an endeavor to identify the mysterious “John.”On May 2, 1933, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York discovered 296 ten-dollar gold certificates, and one $20 gold certificate, all Lindbergh ransom notes. These bills were included among the currency received at the Federal Reserve Bank on May 1, 1933, and apparently had been made in one deposit. Immediately upon the discovery of these bills, deposit tickets at the Federal Reserve Bank for May 1, 1933, were examined. One was found bearing the name and address of “J.J. Faulkner, 537 West 149th Street,” and had marked thereon “gold certificates,” “$10 and $20” in the amount of $2,980. Despite extensive investigation, this depositor was never located.Examination of the ransom notes by handwriting experts resulted in a virtually unanimous opinion that all the notes were written by the same person and that the writer was of German nationality but had spent some time in America. Dr. Condon described “John” as Scandinavian, and believing he could identify the man, spent considerable time in viewing the numerous photographs of possible suspects and known criminals. In this connection, the FBI retained the services of an artist to prepare a portrait of “John” from descriptions furnished by Dr. Condon and Joseph Perrone, the taxi cab driver who had delivered one of the ransom letters to Dr. Condon.In a further endeavor to identify the individual who received the ransom payment, representatives of the New York City Bureau Office engaged Dr. Condon to prepare a transcript of all conversations had by him with “John” on March 12 and April 2, 1932, the dates on which Dr. Condon personally contacted the kidnapper in order to negotiate the return of the child and the payment of the ransom. These conversations were, during March, 1934, transcribed in detail on phonograph records by Dr. Condon who imitated the pronunciations and dialect of “John.” In this manner the nationality, education, mentality, and character of the kidnapper were more clearly defined and permanently preserved for future use.Another interesting attempt to identify the kidnapper centered around the ladder used in the crime. Police quickly realized that it was crudely built, but built nonetheless by someone familiar with wood who was mechanically inclined. The ladder had been thoroughly examined for fingerprints and had been exhibited to builders, carpenters, and neighbors of the Lindberghs in vain. Slivers of the ladder even had been analyzed, and the types of wood used in the ladder had been identified. Perhaps a complete examination of the ladder by itself by a wood expert would yield additional clues, and in early 1933, such an expert was called in—Arthur Koehler of the Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture.Koehler disassembled the ladder and painstakingly identified the types of wood used and examined tool marks. He also looked at the pattern made by nailholes, for it appeared likely that some wood had been used before in indoor construction. Koehler made field trips to the Lindbergh estate and to factories to trace some of the wood. He summarized his findings in a report, and later played a critical role in the trial of the kidnapper.Hauptmann is LocatedA series of ransom notes following the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby led to a meeting between Dr. John Condon, a representative of the Lindbergh family, and a mysterious man named “John.” An artist sketch of “John” was developed from the verbal description of Dr. Condon and proved to be very similar to Bruno Richard Hauptmann, who was ultimately arrested on September 19, 1934 following a massive investigation led by the New Jersey State Police and supported by the FBI.A series of ransom notes following the kidnapping led to a meeting between Dr. John Condon, a representative of the Lindbergh family, and a mysterious man named “John.” An artist sketch of “John” was developed from the verbal description of Dr. Condon and proved to be very similar to Bruno Richard Hauptmann (right), who was arrested on September 19, 1934.For a period of seven months prior to August 20, 1934, no gold certificates were discovered except for those received in the Federal Reserve Bank, previously mentioned. Starting on August 20, 1934, and extending into September, a total of 16 gold certificates were discovered, most of them in the vicinity of Yorkville and Harlem. The long-awaited opportunity had finally arrived. As each bill was recovered, a colored pin marking the location of the recovered bill was inserted in a large map of the Metropolitan Area, thus indicating the movements of the individual or individuals who might be passing the ransom money. When the first few made their appearance, it was decided to concentrate on gold certificates, as experience had proven the futility of tracing the ordinary currency included in the ransom money. In keeping with the cooperative policy previously established with the New Jersey State Police and the New York City Police Department, teams composed of a representative of each of these police agencies and a special agent of the Bureau were organized to personally contact all banks in Greater New York and Westchester County. As a result, the various neighborhood banks discovered the bills close to the point at which they were passed, and it then became possible for the investigators to trace the bills to the person who had originally passed them. For the first time in the history of the case, the investigators succeeded in finding that the description of the individual passing these bills fit exactly that of “John” as described by Dr. Condon. It was determined through the investigation that the bills were being passed principally at corner produce stores.About 1:20 p.m. on September 18, 1934, the assistant manager of the Corn Exchange Bank and Trust Company, at 125th Street and Park Avenue, New York City, telephoned the New York City Bureau Office to advise that a $10 gold certificate had been discovered a few minutes previously by one of the tellers in that bank. It was soon ascertained that this bill had been received at the bank from a gasoline station located at 127th Street and Lexington Avenue, New York City. On September 15, 1934, an alert attendant had received a bill in payment for five gallons of gasoline from a man whose description fitted closely that of the individual who had passed other bills in recent weeks. The filling station attendant, being suspicious of the $10 gold certificate, recorded on the bill the license number of the automobile driven by the purchaser. This license number was issued to Bruno Richard Hauptmann, 1279 East 222nd Street, Bronx, New York.Hauptmann’s house was closely surveilled by federal and local authorities throughout the night of September 18, 1934, until at approximately 9:00 a.m. on September 19, 1934, an individual, closely fitting the description of “John,” as supplied by Dr. Condon, and the description of the purchaser of the gasoline, as supplied by the service station attendant, left his house and entered his automobile parked nearby. He was promptly taken into custody by representatives of the three interested agencies.After some investigating, he was found to be Bruno Richard Hauptmann, the individual to whom the automobile license had been issued, a German carpenter who had been in this country for approximately 11 years. A $20 gold ransom certificate was found on his person. His description fitted perfectly that of “John” as described by Dr. Condon, and in his house was found a pair of shoes which had been purchased with a $20 ransom bill recovered on September 8, 1934. Hauptmann admitted several other purchases which had been made with ransom certificates. On the night of September 19, 1934, he was positively identified by Joseph Perrone as the individual from whom he had received the fifth ransom note to be delivered to Dr. Condon. The following day, ransom certificates in excess of $13,000 were found secreted in the garage of Hauptmann’s residence. Shortly thereafter, he was identified by Dr. Condon as “John” to whom the ransom had been paid. It was also ascertained that he was in possession of a Dodge sedan automobile which answered the description of that seen in the vicinity of the Lindbergh home the day prior to the kidnapping.A painstaking analysis of Hauptmann’s handwriting by the Bureau’s new crime lab showed a remarkable similarity between the lettering of the author of the ransom notes and of Hauptmann. This evidence proved valuable in helping to convict Hauptmann of the murder.A painstaking analysis of Hauptmann’s handwriting by the Bureau’s new crime lab showed a remarkable similarity between the lettering of the author of the ransom notes and of Hauptmann.Shortly after his apprehension, specimens of Hauptmann’s handwriting were flown to Washington, D.C., where a study was made of them in the FBI Laboratory. A comparison of the writing appearing on the ransom notes with that of the specimens disclosed remarkable similarities in inconspicuous, personal characteristics and writing habits, which resulted in a positive identification by the handwriting experts of the Laboratory. Upon the apprehension of Hauptmann, it was found that he bore a striking resemblance to the portrait of “John” which had previously been prepared from descriptions furnished by Dr. Condon and Joseph Perrone.Further investigation developed that Hauptmann, 35 years old, was a native of Saxony, Germany. He had a criminal record for robbery and had spent time in prison. Early in July 1923, he stowed away aboard the SSHanover at Bremen, Germany, and arrived in the Port of New York City on July 13, 1923. He was arrested and deported immediately. After another failed attempt at entry in August, Hauptman successfully entered the United States in November 1923, on board the George Washington. On October 10, 1925, Hauptmann married Anna Schoeffler, a New York City waitress. A son, Manfried, was born to them in 1933. During his illegal stay in New York City and until the spring of 1932, Hauptmann followed his occupation of carpenter. However, a short while after March 1, 1932, the date of the kidnapping, Hauptmann began to trade rather extensively in stocks and never worked again.Indictment, Trial, and ExecutionHauptmann was indicted in the Supreme Court, Bronx County, New York, on charges of extortion on September 26, 1934, and on October 8, 1934, in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, he was indicted for murder. Two days later, the Governor of the State of New York honored the requisition of the Governor of the State of New Jersey for the surrender of Bruno Richard Hauptmann and on October 19, 1934, he was removed to the Hunterdon County Jail, Flemington, New Jersey, to await trial.The trial of Hauptmann began on January 3, 1935, at Flemington, New Jersey, and lasted five weeks. The case against him was based on circumstantial evidence. Tool marks on the ladder matched tools owned by Hauptmann. Wood in the ladder was found to match wood used as flooring in his attic. Dr. Condon’s telephone number and address were found scrawled on a door frame inside a closet. Handwriting on the ransom notes matched samples of Hauptmann’s handwriting.Lindbergh takes the witness stand during the 1935 trial of Hauptmann in Flemington, New Jersey. Hauptmann was found guilty on February 13, 1935. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.Lindbergh takes the witness stand during the 1935 trial of Hauptmann in Flemington, New Jersey. On February 13, 1935, the jury returned a verdict. Hauptmann was guilty of murder in the first degree. The sentence: death. The defense appealed.The Supreme Court of the State of New Jersey on October 9, 1935, upheld the verdict of the Lower Court. Hauptmann’s appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States was denied on December 9, 1935, and he was to be electrocuted on January 17, 1936. However, on this same day the Governor of the State of New Jersey granted a 30-day reprieve and on February 17, 1936, Hauptmann was resentenced, to be electrocuted during the week of March 30, 1936. On March 30, 1936, the Pardon Court of the State of New Jersey denied Hauptmann’s petition for clemency, and on April 3, 1936, at 8:47 p.m., Bruno Richard Hauptmann was electrocuted. Now since Hauptmann never admitted to the crime, they just assume that he was the person responsible. People are still making theories of who it could be, some people say it was the baby’s nurse, or it was the father. But now it’s too late to find out. But the person who killed Charles is a sick monster who killed an innocent baby out of greed and for money. It makes me ashamed to be a human being.Sorry for it being so long. If you read all this way, thank you :).Stay hydrated,Sofia <3

Not all are strange but most are not well know :)Napoleon couldn’t carry a tune.Louis-Joseph Marchand, Napoleon’s valet from 1814 to 1821, wrote:[T]he Emperor, should he start to sing, which he sometimes did while thinking of something else…was rarely in tune and would repeat the same words for 15 minutes. (1)Betsy Balcombe, whom Napoleon befriended when he was in exile on St. Helena, described how he regaled her with “Vive Henri Quatre”:He began to hum the air, became abstracted, and, leaving his seat, marched round the room, keeping time to the song he was singing…. In fact Napoleon’s voice was most unmusical, nor do I think he had any ear for music; for neither on this occasion, nor in any of his subsequent attempts at singing, could I ever discover what tune it was he was executing. (2)Napoleon loved licorice.Louis Constant Wairy, Napoleon’s valet from 1800 to 1814, notes that every morning, after Napoleon finished washing, shaving and dressing, “his handkerchief, his snuffbox, and a little shell box filled with licorice flavored with aniseed and cut very fine, were handed to him.” (3)Betsy Balcombe attributed Napoleon’s rather discoloured teeth to “his constant habit of eating liquorice, of which he always kept a supply in his waistcoat pocket.” (4)According to Hortense Bertrand, the daughter of General Henri Bertrand and his wife Fanny, Napoleon carried a mixture of licorice-powder and brown sugar in his pockets as a remedy for indigestion. (5) He also used it as a remedy for colds.When Napoleon was dying, he wanted to drink only licorice-flavoured water.He asked me for a small bottle and some licorice, poured a small quantity, and told me to fill it with water, adding that in the future he wished to have no other beverage but that. (6)Napoleon cheated at cards.Napoleon hated to lose at cards, chess or any other game, and took pains to avoid doing so. Laure Junot wrote:It was usually the most laughable thing in the world to see him play at any game whatever: he, whose quick perception and prompt judgment immediately seized on and mastered everything else which came in his way, was, curiously enough, never able to understand the manoeuvres of any game, however simple. Thus, his only resource was to cheat. (7)French diplomat Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourienne, Napoleon’s one-time private secretary, observed:In general he was not fond of cards; but if he did play, Vingt-et-un was his favourite game, because it is more rapid than many others, and because, in short, it afforded him an opportunity of cheating. For example, he would ask for a card; if it proved a bad one he would say nothing, but lay it down on the table and wait till the dealer had drawn his. If the dealer produced a good card, then Bonaparte would throw aside his hand, without showing it, and give up his stake. If, on the contrary, the dealer’s card made him exceed twenty-one, Bonaparte also threw his cards aside without showing them, and asked for the payment of his stake. He was much diverted by these little tricks, especially when they were played off undetected; and I confess that even then we were courteous enough to humour him, and wink at his cheating. (8)Napoleon’s mother Letizia would call him on such stunts, as noted in this description of evenings during Napoleon’s exile on Elba:When Napoleon was losing at cards he cheated without scruple, and all submitted with such grace as they could muster, except the stern Corsican lady, who in her decided tone would say, ‘Napoleon, you are cheating.’ To this he would reply: ‘Madame, you are rich, you can afford to lose, but I am poor and must win.’ (9)The young Betsy Balcombe also challenged Napoleon during a game of whist:Peeping under his cards as they were dealt to him, he endeavoured whenever he got an important one, to draw off my attention, and then slyly held it up for my sister to see. I soon discovered this, and calling him to order, told him he was cheating, and that if he continued to do so, I would not play. At last he revoked intentionally, and at the end of the game tried to mix the cards together to prevent his being discovered, but I started up, and seizing hold of his hands, I pointed out to him and the others what he had done. He laughed until the tears ran out of his eyes, and declared he had played fair. (10)Napoleon liked snuff.This was commented on by many observers, though they differed as to whether Napoleon was a prodigious snuff-taker or simply a sloppy one.Constant wrote:It has been said that His Majesty took a great deal of tobacco, and that in order to be able to take it more quickly and frequently, he put it in a waistcoat pocket lined with skin for this purpose; these are so many errors; the Emperor never put tobacco in anything but his snuff-boxes, and though he consumed a great deal, he took but very little. He brought his pinch to his nostrils as if simply to smell it, and then he let it fall. It is true that the place where he had been was often covered with it; but his handkerchiefs, incontrovertible witnesses in such matters, were scarcely soiled…. He often contented himself with putting an open snuff-box under his nose to breathe the odor of the tobacco it contained…. His snuff was raped very large and was usually composed of several kinds of tobacco mixed together. Sometimes he amused himself by feeding it to the gazelles he had at Saint-Cloud. They were very fond if it.” (11)Count de Las Cases, one of Napoleon’s companions on St. Helena, said:The Emperor, it is well known, was in the habit of taking snuff almost every minute: this was a sort of a mania which seized him chiefly during intervals of abstraction. His snuff-box was speedily emptied; but he still continued to thrust his fingers into it, or to raise it to his nose, particularly when he was himself speaking. (12)Napoleon loved long, hot baths.Again, this was something frequently commented on. In Bourienne’s words:His partiality for the bath he mistook for a necessity. He would usually remain in the bath two hours, during which time I used to read to him extracts from the journals and pamphlets of the day, for he was anxious to hear and know all that was going on. While in the bath, he was continually turning on the warm water, to raise the temperature, so that I was sometimes enveloped in such a dense vapour that I could not see to read, and was obliged to open the door. (13)Napoleon had beautiful hands.Napoleon was proud of his hands, and he took great care of his fingernails. Betsy Balcombe wrote:His hand was the fattest and prettiest in the word; his knuckles dimpled like those of a baby, his fingers taper and beautifully formed, and his nails perfect. (14)Napoleon’s valet Louis Étienne Saint-Denis thought Napoleon’s hands “were of the most perfect model; they resembled the beautiful hands of a woman.” (15) Saint-Denis also noted that Napoleon never wore gloves unless he was going out on horseback, and even then he was more likely to put them in his pocket than on his hands.Even Germaine de Staël – a notable opponent of Napoleon – commented:I recollect once being told very gravely by a member of the Institute, a counsellor of state, that Bonaparte’s nails were perfectly well made. Another time a courtier exclaimed, ‘The first consul’s hand is beautiful!’ (16)Napoleon couldn’t stand the smell of paint.Napoleon had an acute sense of smell, and one of the things that bothered him was paint. When he learned that Longwood House, to which he was to move on St. Helena, smelled strongly of paint:He walked up and down the lawn, gesticulating in the wildest manner. His rage was so great that it almost choked him. He declared that the smell of paint was so obnoxious to him that he would never inhabit a house where it existed. (17)Las Cases corroborates this story and adds:In the Imperial palaces, care had been taken never to expose him to it. In his different journeys, the slightest smell of paint frequently rendered it necessary to change the apartments that had been prepared for him; and on board of the Northumberland [the British vessel that took Napoleon to St. Helena] the paint of the ship had made him very ill…. [At Longwood] the smell of the paint was certainly very slight; but it was too much for the Emperor. (18)Napoleon was superstitious.Napoleon was superstitious and he did not like people who regarded superstition as a weakness. He used to say that none but fools affected to despise it. (19)A Corsican through and through, Napoleon believed in omens, demons and the concept of luck. He disliked Fridays and the number 13. He considered December 2 – the day of his coronation in 1804 and of his victory at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 – one of his lucky days. Upon the occurrence of remarkable incidents, either good or bad, he habitually crossed himself.Napoleon liked to pinch people.Apparently he had one habit not everybody could appreciate. Louis Constant Wairy, the emperor’s chief valet and general confidant, wrote about Napoleon’s dangerous hands in his memoirs claiming that when his master was in a good mood he would pinch his close friends by the tip of the ear. He was also known to pinch ladies’ noses, his friend’s cheeks until they turned blue and baby’s chins until their mothers had had enough.Constant writes:M. de Bourrienne, whose excellent Memoirs I have read with the greatest pleasure, says somewhere that the Emperor in his moments of good humour would pinch his intimates by the tip of the ear; I have my own experience that he pinched the whole of it, and often both ears at once; and that with a master hand. (20)[H]e squeezed very roughly…he pinched hardest when he was in the best humor. Sometimes, as I was entering his room to dress him, he would rush at me like a madman, and while saluting me with his favorite greeting: ‘Eh bien, monsieur le drôle?’ would pinch both ears at once in a way to make me cry out; it was not even rare for him to add to these soft caresses one or two slaps very well laid on; I was sure then of finding him in a charming humor all the rest of the day, and full of benevolence. Roustan, and even Marshal Berthier, Prince de Neufchâtel, received their own good share of these imperial marks of affection; I have frequently seen them with their cheeks all red and their eyes almost weeping. (21)Laure Junot adds,When Bonaparte indulged in raillery he did not use the weapon with a very light hand; and those he loved best often smarted under the blow. Though Junot was a particular favourite of his during the consulate and the first years of the empire, yet he frequently selected him as the object of some coarse joke; and if accompanied by a pinch of the ear, so severe as to draw blood, the favour was complete. (22)Even the young were not spared. Betsy Balcombe describes how, playing blind man’s bluff,The Emperor commenced by creeping stealthily up to me, and giving my nose a very sharp twinge; I knew it was he both from the act itself and from his footstep. (23)Betsy also writes that Napoleon handled the Montholons’ six-week old baby (Lili) “so awkwardly, that we were in a state of terror lest he should let it fall. He occasionally diverted himself by pinching the little creature’s nose and chin, until it cried.” (24)Napoleon never felt his heart beat.According to Constant:A very remarkable peculiarity is that the Emperor never felt his heart beat. He has often said so both to M. Corvisart [Napoleon’s doctor] and to me, and more than once he had us pass our hands over his breast, so that we could make trial of this singular exception; we never felt any pulsation. (25)Dog problemsNapoleon was very much infatuated with his wife Joséphine. There was just one problem: it appears Joséphine might have liked her pug, Fortune, more than she liked Napoleon. When Napoleon married Josephine, Fortune had already claimed a spot in her bed and Napoleon needed to either accept that or sleep elsewhere. When trying to be intimate with his wife on their wedding night, Fortune wouldn't stand for it and attacked Napoleon, drawing blood and leaving a scar on his legs.Age gapJoséphine de Beauharnais was 32, widowed and highly established in French Society when she first met the shy, 26-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte. Within 6 months the two walked down the aisle and were officially declared husband and wife. Rumour has it that she dropped four years off her age on the marriage certificate and added 18 months to Napoleon's so the two were a more suitable match.HE WASN’T ACTUALLY SHORT.The rumor about Napoleon’s height—or lack thereof—started during his lifetime. English propagandists depicted the general as comically diminutive in critical cartoons during the Napoleonic Wars. The belief became so deeply established that in the 20th century, a psychological complex specific to short men was named after him. But how tall was he really?Probably around five-foot-six—which was actually just about average for the era. That height comes from what was written at the time of his death. A physician’s note that accompanied Napoleon’s coffin says that he was five-foot-two “from the top of the head to the heels”—but an additional note specifies that this is French measurements and that it is equal to five-foot-six in English terms.HE HAD A FORMAL MILITARY TRAINING.Napoleon was born into a family of minor nobility on Corsica­—a large island off the coast of Italy—a year after it became a French territory. His parents were well off enough to send him to school in France, although he never lost his Corsican accent and claimed to have been teased for it throughout his life. As a teen, he attended the prestigious École Militaire in Paris, but when his father died in his first year there, the younger Napoleon Bonaparte was a Corsican nationalist, longing to see his homeland overthrow the French rule. In the late 1780s and 1790s, he often returned to Corsica, but realised how provincial the island was and how much bigger the world seemed in comparison. Determined to make himself more French, Napoleon changed his name from “Napoleone di Buonaparte” to Napoleon Bonaparte when he was a young adult studying in Paris and was forced to graduate early, cutting his studies short caused Napoleon’s grades to suffer and he ended up graduating 42nd in a class of 58 students, to help his family financially. He did, however, earn the distinction of being the first Corsican to graduate from École Militaire. At 16 years old, Napoleon became an officer in the French army.HIS FIRST WIFE, JOSÉPHINE DE BEAUHARNAIS, BARELY ESCAPED EXECUTION.Born into a plantation family in Martinique, Joséphine married into French aristocracy when she wed Alexandre de Beauharnais at the age of 16. Although her husband wanted nothing to do with her, she seduced and charmed other high society men, but that didn’t save her from imprisonment in Les Carmes as the Revolution swept through Paris. Her estranged husband was sent to the guillotine, but the day before her trial, the government was deposed and the executions halted. Having just barely escaped with her life, Joséphine quickly became a popular socialite, eventually meeting Napoleon at a party in 1795. She was 32, widowed, and established in French society; he was just 26, shy and inexperienced. At their wedding six months later, she reportedly knocked four years off her age on the marriage certificate and he added 18 months to his, which made them roughly the same age (at least on paper).HE LIKELY NEVER SAID “NOT TONIGHT, JOSÉPHINE.”Of course, we can’t know everything the couple said to one another in private, but judging from letters between the two, Napoleon was desperately infatuated with his wife and expressed an insecure neediness that, if anything, put her off intimacy. The young general embarked on his Italian campaign just a few days into the couple’s marriage, writing to her almost constantly from the battlefield. For her part, Joséphine seems to have struck up affairs back in France in her husband’s absence and her silence drove him to send increasingly pleading missives.HE ONCE WROTE A ROMANCE NOVEL.That’s right, Napoleon Bonaparte was a general, a revolutionary, an emperor and—on at least once occasion—a romance novelist. Written just before he met and married Joséphine in 1795, Clisson et Eugénie tells a fictionalized account of the young soldier’s relationship with Bernardine Eugénie Désirée Clary, whose sister married his brother Joseph. The novella was never published during his lifetime and following his death, the manuscript was divided into segments that sold as souvenirs at auction houses in the centuries after. Although the various segments were published at one time or another, a complete English translation wasn’t reconstructed until 2009. If you’re interested in reading the tale of passionate lovers separated by war and ultimately death, you can find Clisson et Eugénie on Amazon.HE PROBABLY WASN'T AFRAID OF CATS.There are a lot of claims swirling about that Napoleon—and many other famous generals-turned-dictators—suffered from “ailurophobia,” or fear of cats. But Katharine MacDonogh, author of Reigning Cats And Dogs: A History Of Pets At Court Since The Renaissance, says that “No record exists of Napoleon either liking or hating cats."NAPOLEON’S ARMY DISCOVERED THE ROSETTA STONE.Napoleon is best remembered for his political and military prowess, but during his early life, he also considered himself a scientist, and was elected membership to to the National Institute, the foremost scientific society in post-Revolutionary France, in 1797. For his expedition to seize Egypt and thus cut off Britain’s trade route, Napoleon brought along 150 savants—scientists, engineers, and scholars to survey the topography, environment, culture, and history of Egypt—in addition to his troops. The 23-volume Description de l'Égypte contained unprecedented knowledge of the country, but perhaps the greatest find was the Rosetta Stone. Captain Pierre François-Xavier Bouchard discovered the inscribed slab during the demolition of an ancient wall in the city of Rosetta. He immediately recognized the potential significance and had the stone shipped to Cairo. Written in hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek, the Stone eventually proved to be the cipher that cracked ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.BEETHOVEN ORIGINALLY PLANNED TO DEDICATE HIS THIRD SYMPHONY TO NAPOLEON.Ludwig van Beethoven greatly admired the general, even into Napoleon’s early years as First Consul after overthrowing the existing government. When he began working on Symphony 3, Beethoven professed to be inspired by Napoleon’s heroic exploits and ostensibly democratic ideals. But then, in 1804, even after declaring himself First Consul for life, Napoleon had himself crowned Emperor of France and Beethoven lost all respect for him. According to Ferdinand Ries, a student and early biographer of the composer, Beethoven “flew into a rage and cried out: 'Is he too, then, nothing more than an ordinary human being? Now he, too, will trample on the rights of man, and indulge only his ambition!’ Beethoven went to the table, took hold of the title page by the top, tore it in two, and threw it on the floor.”He seems to have remained conflicted about his former idol, however. In a later letter, he admitted that "the title of the symphony really is 'Bonaparte’,” and when it was published in 1806 the title page read, "Sinfonia Eroica ... composed to celebrate the memory of a great man."NAPOLEON’S EMPIRE ATTEMPTED TO SPREAD RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE.As a child, Napoleon was baptized Catholic, but his own writings indicate that he began to question Catholicism—and, indeed, the existence of any god—early in his life. But while Napoleon lacked a strong personal faith, he admired the tactical power of organized religion. Following his initial ascent to power in France, he set about reestablishing the Catholic Church that had been all but dismantled during the Revolution. In doing so, however, he recognized Catholicism only as, “the religion of the vast majority of French citizens” and brought the Church under the authority of the state.As emperor, Napoleon emancipated the Jews in areas of Europe under his control, insisting that they be free to own property and worship freely (a proclamation which earned him condemnation as the "Antichrist and the Enemy of God" by the Russian Orthodox Church). Of course he did so not out of pure benevolence but because he believed religious freedom would attract Jewish populations to the French-controlled territories. Following his Egyptian expedition, some scholars believe that Napoleon was particularly fascinated by Muhammad and the Muslim religion. Although this, too, appears to be largely situational, as he once wrote, "I am nothing. In Egypt I was a Mussulman; here I shall be a Catholic." Whether or not Napoleon ever truly believed in Islam, he wrote tolerantly about even some of the more controversial practices, saying that polygamy was a way for different races to remain blended and equal.NAPOLEON ATTEMPTED SUICIDE BEFORE EXILE IN ELBA.Following a disastrous campaign in Russia and pressures from the Sixth Coalition, Napoleon was forced to abdicate as part of the Treaty of Fontainebleau on April 11, 1814. Although he would at first be sentenced to live out a comfortable life as sovereign of the island of Elba, Napoleon’s first reaction to his exile was a suicide attempt while still at Fontainebleau. He had been carrying a poisonous pill with him ever since the failure in Russia and finally took it on April 12th. But the pill must have lost its potency with age; while it made Napoleon violently ill, it did not kill him.BRITISH SOVEREIGNS WORRIED THAT EVEN THE ENGLISH PEOPLE WOULD RALLY AROUND NAPOLEON.Following his escape from Elba and his brief return to power, Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo and forced to surrender to the British captain of the HMS Bellerophon. Initially, he drafted a letter to the Prince Regent and future King George IV requesting asylum and "a small estate" outside of London—a bold request considering his years of plotting to conquer Britain. The letter was never delivered, but it likely wouldn’t have mattered. Parliament was concerned that Napoleon—a foreign dictator—would be so popular with the British common people that they refused to even let him disembark. Instead, he remained on board the anchored Bellerophon while crowds flocked to catch a glimpse of him until he was banished to St. Helena.ATTEMPTS TO RESCUE NAPOLEON FROM ST. HELENA INCLUDED AN ELABORATE SUBMARINE PLAN.The British took extreme caution in securing Napoleon’s final exile location. St. Helena is isolated, ringed with steep cliff faces, and was guarded by some 2800 men armed with 500 cannons. The seas around the tiny island were constantly patrolled by an entire Royal Navy squadron consisting of 11 ships and even a separate island—1200 miles further out in the Atlantic—was stocked with further garrisons to prevent a rescue attempt from South America. They were right to be concerned. During Napoleon’s last six years of life on St. Helena, escape plans included boats, balloons, and even a pair of primitive submarines. Notorious British smuggler Tom Johnson later claimed that in 1820 he was offered £40,000 to rescue the emperor. He hatched a scheme to do so that included a pair of ships with collapsible masts that could sneak up to the island fully submerged and a bosun’s chair to scale the cliffs. It’s unclear how far this plan ever got—or, indeed, if Johnson ever accepted such an assignment—but had it succeeded it would have made for one of the most fantastic prison breaks in all of history.A HOUSE WAS BUILT FOR NAPOLEON IN NEW ORLEANS.Wikimedia Commons // Public DomainNicholas Girod, the fifth mayor of New Orleans, was a Frenchmen and avid supporter of Napoleon. Following the abdication at Waterloo, Girod helped members of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard escape to the New World. But he also had plans for the emperor himself to move to NOLA. In 1821, Girod, who had retired from the mayoral office, began renovating a home on the corner of Chartres and St. Louis Streets, which he claimed would be Napoleon’s residence after an intended escape expedition by Dominique You (also called Dominique Youx). When Napoleon died later that same year, Girod moved his own family into the building, but even today it is still known as Napoleon House.NAPOLEON LIKELY DIED OF STOMACH CANCER—DESPITE 200 YEARS OF ARSENIC SPECULATION.Napoleon died on May 5, 1821, at the age of 51, while still in exile on St. Helena. At the time, his personal physician reported on the death certificate that the emperor had died of stomach cancer, consistent with reports that he suffered from abdominal pain and nausea in the last weeks of his life. But his body remained remarkably well preserved, a common side effect of arsenic poisoning, inspiring centuries of suspicion about foul play. In 1961, elevated levels of arsenic were detected in surviving samples of Napoleon’s hair, fueling these rumors further. Even if he wasn’t assassinated in that way, some theories suggested, perhaps he was accidentally poisoned by the fumes created by the arsenic in his bedroom wallpaper and the damp humidity on St. Helena.A 2008 study conducted by a team of scientists at Italy’s National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Milan-Bicocca and Pavia, however, disproved the poison suspicions. A detailed analysis of hairs taken from Napoleon’s head at four times in his life—as a boy in Corsica, during his exile on the island of Elba, the day he died on St. Helena, at age 51, and the day after his death—showed that while the levels of arsenic present were astronomical compared to modern standards (about 100 times what is present in the hair of people living today), there was no significant change throughout his life. What’s more, hairs from his son, Napoleon II, and his wife, Empress Joséphine, showed similar—albeit elevated—levels of arsenic. Chronic exposure, in paints and even as a medicine, throughout Napoleon’s life seem to be responsible for the inflammatory 1961 findings. Of course, all that arsenic—not to mention the myriad other toxic chemicals believed to be tonics at the time—likely hastened the emperor’s demise.

Q. Was Napoleon clever at school?A. Napoleon was quite clever at school. While others knew their native Italian, Napoleon spoke fluent French although he never lost his Corsican accent. His French writing was atrocious.He was good in geometry and arithmetic, handy for later training as an artillery officer. He detested learning dead languages, reading translated Greek and Latin. He enjoyed geography, but his favorite was history. He read about and copied Alexander and Hannibal’s exploits.He built forts and played war games, always the leader whose orders were obeyed. He loved being a soldier. He attended the elite Ecole Militaire (the French military academy). He earned a coveted commission as a lieutenant after graduation at age 16.The Story of Napoleon by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall15 Epic Facts About Napoleon Bonaparte (mentalfloss.com)Napoleon's Lifelong Interest in Science (smithsonianmag.com)Napoleon Bonaparte (Sparknotes)10 Facts About NapoleonHow Did Napoleon Come To Power In FranceNapoleon Bonaparte’s Prelude to the Battle of WaterlooThe Story of Napoleon by Henrietta Elizabeth MarshallNAPOLEON AT SCHOOLTo the south of Europe there is a sunny blue sea called the Mediterranean.In this sunny, blue sea about fifty miles from the coast of Italy lies the island of Corsica, a rugged and beautiful little island, full of mountains. Its people are hardy and brave, and, like all mountain peoples, they love liberty. But for hundreds of years, the island belonged to the Republic of Genoa. The people hated to be ruled by Genoa, and at last, under a leader called Paoli, they rebelled and fought for freedom—fought indeed so well that they nearly drove the Genoese out. Then the Genoese asked the French to help them, and at last, tired of the struggle, they sold the island to France.At that the Corsicans were very angry. What right had the Genoese to sell them like cattle to a new master? they asked. So they went on fighting the French, as they had fought the Genoese.Among those who fought were Charles-Marie Bonaparte and his brave wife, Letizia. Bonaparte was an Italian, but for many years his family had lived in Corsica. He was a noble; but in Corsica, there was little difference between nobles and shepherds—they were all poor and proud alike. Letizia was young and beautiful, yet she bore all the hardships of war bravely. She followed her husband even to the battle-field. She was often in danger from flying bullets, yet she feared nothing, and thought only of the safety of her husband and the freedom of her country. By mountain paths, steep and narrow; through trackless forests, called in Corsica, "maquis"; over streams where there were no bridges, Letizia followed her husband. She was only a girl, but she had the heart of a hero, and not until the struggle proved hopeless did she give in.For France was great and Corsica little, and brave though the people were, they were at last forced to yield; their island became part of the French dominion, and their leader Paoli fled over the seas.And here, in this little isle, almost before the roar of battle had ceased, among a people full of sullen anger and bitterness against their conquerors, one blazing August day in 1769 a little son was born to Charles and Letizia Bonaparte. They gave him the name of Napoleon, a name which he was to make famous all the world over, and for all time to come.Napoleon had several brothers and sisters, and their mother, having only one servant, had little time to look after the children. So she gave them a big, empty room in which to play. The walls and floor of this room were bare, and there was nothing in it except the children's toys. Here they were allowed to do as they liked. They scribbled and drew pictures on the walls, and played at all sorts of games. Napoleon always drew soldiers marching to battle, and he played with nothing but a drum and a wooden sword. He used to set up battles, too, amongst the boys of the neighborhood. The wars would last for months at a time, during which there would be many fierce fights, surprises, and assaults. Napoleon was always the leader, and made the others obey him. He was afraid of no one, and he bit, scratched, and slapped anyone, big or little, as he chose. He was often noisy and quarrelsome, and bullied his brothers and sisters, especially Joseph, who was older than he.But at times, even when he was a very small boy, he would be moody and, thoughtful, and would walk about by himself, refusing to speak or play with the others. He was an untidy little boy, not caring in the least how he was dressed. Straight dark hair straggled over his brown face, his stockings hung down over his shoe-tops, and altogether he must have looked a wild little harum-scarum.When Napoleon was about five years old he was sent to a school for little girls kept by nuns. But he did not stay long there and was soon sent to a boys' school, with his brother Joseph. Here the boys in class were set opposite each other in two rows, each under a large flag. One was the flag of Carthage, the other the flag of Rome, with S.P.Q.R. upon it, which means "Senatus Populusque Romanus." That is Latin for "The Senate and People of Rome."The boys were arranged like this so that each side might try to learn better than the other, and fight and conquer in lessons, as the Romans and Carthaginians fought in war.Napoleon (biography.com)As Napoleon was the younger of the two brothers, he was put on the side of Carthage. But he did not like that at all, for in history he knew the Romans had always been the conquerors, and he liked to be on the winning side. So Joseph, who did not mind so much, changed with Napoleon, and allowed him to be a Roman.Napoleon loved soldiers better than anything else and he longed to be one. Every morning, before he went to school, he was given a piece of white bread. This he used to give to a soldier in exchange for a piece of coarse brown bread. His mother was not very pleased with this. "Why do you give away your good white bread for a piece of brown?" she asked him one day."Because," replied Napoleon, "if I am going to be a soldier I must get used to eating soldiers' bread. Besides, I like it."As he loved soldiers so much, his father and mother decided that he should be one. And one December day a little ship sailed away from Corsica, carrying Charles Bonaparte and his two sons, Joseph and Napoleon, over the sea to France. Napoleon was not yet ten, and Joseph scarcely a year older. He was going to learn to be a priest, and Napoleon to be a soldier.The boys were sent to school at a town called Autun. With his fellows, Joseph soon became a favorite. He was a little shy at first, but he was lively and gay, and joined in games with the other boys.Napoleon, on the other hand, was silent and sad. His dark face looked sulky, and instead of joining in the games, he liked best to go about by himself. So the boys teased him. They called him "cowardly Corsican," and reminded him that his island had been conquered by the French. At first, Napoleon paid no attention. Then suddenly, one day, flashing around on his tormentors, he cried, "If the French had been four against one only, they would never have had Corsica: but they were ten to one."NAPOLEON AS A BOY.But if Joseph was the greater favorite, Napoleon was far the more clever. He soon learned to read and speak in French. For to the boys, French was a foreign language; at home, in Corsica, they spoke Italian. But although Napoleon learned to speak French very well, all his life long he made mistakes in it, especially in writing. He wrote very badly too—to hide his bad spelling, some people say.The little, sulky, lonely boy did not stay long at Autun. In about three months his father came to take him away to the military school at Brienne. But Joseph was to be left at Autun. The two brothers had never before been parted, and although Napoleon bullied Joseph they were very fond of each other. Now that they were in a strange land, far from their home, among people speaking a strange language, they seemed to love each other more. When they knew that they must part, Joseph burst into tears. But Napoleon tried hard to pretend that he did not care. His dark face only looked sulkier than before. But although he tried hard, he could not quite keep back the tears, and one slowly trickled down his cheek.At first, Napoleon was not happy at his new school, even though he was dressed in a uniform and was going to be a soldier. He was dreadfully home-sick. He was told that he would have to stay at school for six years, and to a little boy of nine, it seemed as if six years would never end.As Napoleon was shy, moody, and silent, his schoolfellows teased him here too. They nicknamed him "Straw on Nose," because they thought that he held his nose in the air, and that Napoleon sounded like the French words for straw on nose—"la paille au nez." They teased him, also, about his country. "You are a conquered nation, a people of slaves," they said.PORTRAIT OF YOUNG NAPOLEON BONAPARTE SOLDIER POLITICAL LEADER EMPEROR OF FRANCE BY PAINTER JEAN BAPTISTE GREUZEBut one winter, when Napoleon had been about four years at school, the boys had lessons about the building of ramparts and fortifications. They were taught the names of the different kinds of forts, their uses, and how best to attack and defend them. While these lessons were going on, there came a heavy fall of snow. This gave Napoleon a grand idea. He proposed that they should build a fortress of snow, and attack and defend it like soldiers.All the boys were delighted with the idea. Napoleon drew out the lines of the fort, and soon everyone was hard at work with spade and wheel-barrow, eagerly building under Napoleon's directions.When the fort was finished, the boys took sides and fought with snowballs. Napoleon was general, and he commanded both sides, giving orders sometimes to the besiegers, sometimes to the defenders. The masters were quite pleased, and looked on, cheering those boys who showed most courage and cleverness.Soon the fame of the fort spread far, and people came from all round about to see it and watch the fights. These went on as long as the snow lay upon the ground. But at last March came, the sun began to grow warm, the snow melted, and the storming and snowballing came to an end. The masters were not sorry when this happened, as many of the boys had caught bad colds from playing so much in the snow. As for Napoleon, he was surer than ever that the life of a soldier was the grandest possible, and he felt that he was born to make others obey him.As to his lessons, Napoleon learned no Greek, and never did his Latin well. He loved the tales of the Greek and Roman heroes, but he read them in translations. It seemed to him waste of time to try to read them in a dead or foreign language. At arithmetic and geometry, he was good. He liked his geography lessons too, but above all he loved history. Whenever he had a spare moment he might be found reading, and it was history and the lives of great men that he read. Indeed he often read when he ought to have been playing games. So he never grew tall; and although his shoulders were broad, he was thin and delicate-looking.Napoleon BonaparteLecture about Napoleon - Oxford High School15 Epic Facts About Napoleon BonaparteGETTY IMAGES1. HE HAD A FORMAL MILITARY TRAINING.Napoleon was born into a family of minor nobility on Corsica­—a large island off the coast of Italy—a year after it became a French territory. His parents were well off enough to send him to school in France, although he never lost his Corsican accent and claimed to have been teased for it throughout his life. As a teen, he attended the prestigious École Militaire in Paris, but when his father died in his first year there, the younger Bonaparte (whose name was actually “Napoleone di Buonaparte” before he changed it as a young adult to sound more French) was forced to graduate early to help his family financially. Cutting his studies short caused Napoleon’s grades to suffer and he ended up graduating 42nd in a class of 58 students. He did, however, earn the distinction of being the first Corsican to graduate from École Militaire. At 16 years old, Napoleon became an officer in the French army.2. HE WAS ORIGINALLY A CORSICAN NATIONALIST.Although Napoleon was single-handedly responsible for and synonymous with the first French Empire, as a young man, he longed to see his homeland overthrow French rule. His parents had opposed French rule since before he was born, and during his youth, Napoleon wrote a series of treatises on the history and government of Corsica in which he calls the French “monsters” “who are said to be the enemies of free men.” (His plans for a full book on the island country never came to fruition.) In the late 1780s and early 1790s, Napoleon returned to Corsica for long stretches, avoiding the early stages of the French Revolution. But during these visits home, he was struck by how provincial the island was and how much bigger the world at large seemed in comparison. His mannerisms and preoccupations were becoming more French. Meanwhile, Corsican governor and former idol to young Napoleon Pasquale Paoli became increasingly Anglicized. Ultimately, it was a clash between the Buonaparte family and Paoli that inspired Napoleon to leave Corsica once and for all.3. HIS FIRST WIFE, JOSÉPHINE DE BEAUHARNAIS, BARELY ESCAPED EXECUTION.Born into a plantation family in Martinique, Joséphine married into French aristocracy when she wed Alexandre de Beauharnais at the age of 16. Although her husband wanted nothing to do with her, she seduced and charmed other high society men, but that didn’t save her from imprisonment in Les Carmes as the Revolution swept through Paris. Her estranged husband was sent to the guillotine, but the day before her trial, the government was deposed and the executions halted. Having just barely escaped with her life, Joséphine quickly became a popular socialite, eventually meeting Napoleon at a party in 1795. She was 32, widowed, and established in French society; he was just 26, shy and inexperienced. At their wedding six months later, she reportedly knocked four years off her age on the marriage certificate and he added 18 months to his, which made them roughly the same age (at least on paper).4. HE LIKELY NEVER SAID “NOT TONIGHT, JOSÉPHINE.”Napoleon, Josephine and a giant bill for Cologne - The Perfume SocietyOf course, we can’t know everything the couple said to one another in private, but judging from letters between the two, Napoleon was desperately infatuated with his wife and expressed an insecure neediness that, if anything, put her off intimacy. The young general embarked on his Italian campaign just a few days into the couple’s marriage, writing to her almost constantly from the battlefield. For her part, Joséphine seems to have struck up affairs back in France in her husband’s absence and her silence drove him to send increasingly pleading missives.5. HE WASN’T ACTUALLY SHORT.The rumor about Napoleon’s height—or lack thereof—started during his lifetime. English propagandists depicted the general as comically diminutive in critical cartoons during the Napoleonic Wars. The belief became so deeply established that in the 20th century, a psychological complex specific to short men was named after him. But how tall was he really? Probably around five-foot-six—which was actually just about average for the era. That height comes from what was written at the time of his death. A physician’s note that accompanied Napoleon’s coffin says that he was five-foot-two “from the top of the head to the heels”—but an additional note specifies that this is French measurements and that it is equal to five-foot-six in English terms.6. HE ONCE WROTE A ROMANCE NOVEL.That’s right, Napoleon Bonaparte was a general, a revolutionary, an emperor and—on at least one occasion—a romance novelist. Written just before he met and married Joséphine in 1795, Clisson et Eugénie tells a fictionalized account of the young soldier’s relationship with Bernardine Eugénie Désirée Clary, whose sister married his brother Joseph. The novella was never published during his lifetime and following his death, the manuscript was divided into segments that sold as souvenirs at auction houses in the centuries after. Although the various segments were published at one time or another, a complete English translation wasn’t reconstructed until 2009. If you’re interested in reading the tale of passionate lovers separated by war and ultimately death, you can find Clisson et Eugénie on Amazon.7. HE PROBABLY WASN'T AFRAID OF CATS.There are a lot of claims swirling about that Napoleon—and many other famous generals-turned-dictators—suffered from “ailurophobia,” or fear of cats. But Katharine MacDonogh, author of Reigning Cats And Dogs: A History Of Pets At Court Since The Renaissance, says that “No record exists of Napoleon either liking or hating cats."8. NAPOLEON’S ARMY DISCOVERED THE ROSETTA STONE.Napoleon is best remembered for his political and military prowess, but during his early life, he also considered himself a scientist and was elected membership to the National Institute, the foremost scientific society in post-Revolutionary France, in 1797. For his expedition to seize Egypt and thus cut off Britain’s trade route, Napoleon brought along 150 savants—scientists, engineers, and scholars to survey the topography, environment, culture, and history of Egypt—in addition to his troops. The 23-volume Description de l'Égypte contained unprecedented knowledge of the country, but perhaps the greatest find was the Rosetta Stone. Captain Pierre François-Xavier Bouchard discovered the inscribed slab during the demolition of an ancient wall in the city of Rosetta. He immediately recognized the potential significance and had the stone shipped to Cairo. Written in hieroglyphics, demotic, and Greek, the Stone eventually proved to be the cipher that cracked ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.9. BEETHOVEN ORIGINALLY PLANNED TO DEDICATE HIS THIRD SYMPHONY TO NAPOLEON.Ludwig van Beethoven greatly admired the general, even into Napoleon’s early years as First Consul after overthrowing the existing government. When he began working on Symphony 3, Beethoven professed to be inspired by Napoleon’s heroic exploits and ostensibly democratic ideals. But then, in 1804, even after declaring himself First Consul for life, Napoleon had himself crowned Emperor of France and Beethoven lost all respect for him. According to Ferdinand Ries, a student and early biographer of the composer, Beethoven “flew into a rage and cried out: 'Is he too, then, nothing more than an ordinary human being? Now he, too, will trample on the rights of man, and indulge only his ambition!’ Beethoven went to the table, took hold of the title page by the top, tore it in two, and threw it on the floor.”He seems to have remained conflicted about his former idol, however. In a later letter, he admitted that "the title of the symphony really is 'Bonaparte’,” and when it was published in 1806 the title page read, "Sinfonia Eroica ... composed to celebrate the memory of a great man."Fledermaus 1990 Published on May 31, 2011Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E flat major (Op. 55), also known as the Eroica (Italian for "heroic"), is a landmark musical work marking the full arrival of the composer's "middle-period", a series of unprecedented large scale works of emotional depth and structural rigor. The Third was begun immediately after the Second, completed in August 1804, and first performed April 7, 1805. Beethoven had originally conceived of dedicating the symphony to Napoleon Bonaparte, but when Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor of the French in May 1804, Beethoven became disgusted and dedicated the symphony to Prince Franz Joseph Maximillian Lobkowitz.10. NAPOLEON’S EMPIRE ATTEMPTED TO SPREAD RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE.As a child, Napoleon was baptized Catholic, but his own writings indicate that he began to question Catholicism—and, indeed, the existence of any god—early in his life. But while Napoleon lacked a strong personal faith, he admired the tactical power of organized religion. Following his initial ascent to power in France, he set about reestablishing the Catholic Church that had been all but dismantled during the Revolution. In doing so, however, he recognized Catholicism only as, “the religion of the vast majority of French citizens” and brought the Church under the authority of the state.As emperor, Napoleon emancipated the Jews in areas of Europe under his control, insisting that they be free to own property and worship freely (a proclamation which earned him condemnation as the "Antichrist and the Enemy of God" by the Russian Orthodox Church). Of course, he did so not out of pure benevolence but because he believed religious freedom would attract Jewish populations to the French-controlled territories. Following his Egyptian expedition, some scholars believe that Napoleon was particularly fascinated by Muhammad and the Muslim religion. Although this, too, appears to be largely situational, as he once wrote, "I am nothing. In Egypt I was a Mussulman; here I shall be a Catholic." Whether or not Napoleon ever truly believed in Islam, he wrote tolerantly about even some of the more controversial practices, saying that polygamy was a way for different races to remain blended and equal.11. NAPOLEON ATTEMPTED SUICIDE BEFORE EXILE IN ELBA.Following a disastrous campaign in Russia and pressures from the Sixth Coalition, Napoleon was forced to abdicate as part of the Treaty of Fontainebleau on April 11, 1814. Although he would at first be sentenced to live out a comfortable life as sovereign of the island of Elba, Napoleon’s first reaction to his exile was a suicide attempt while still at Fontainebleau. He had been carrying a poisonous pill with him ever since the failure in Russia and finally took it on April 12th. But the pill must have lost its potency with age; while it made Napoleon violently ill, it did not kill him.12. BRITISH SOVEREIGNS WORRIED THAT EVEN THE ENGLISH PEOPLE WOULD RALLY AROUND NAPOLEON.The strategic situation in Western Europe in 1815: 250,000 Frenchmen faced a coalition of about 850,000 soldiers on four fronts. Napoleon was forced to leave 20,000 men in Western France to reduce a royalist insurrection.Battle of Waterloo - WikipediaFollowing his escape from Elba and his brief return to power, Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo and forced to surrender to the British captain of the HMS Bellerophon. Initially, he drafted a letter to the Prince Regent and future King George IV requesting asylum and "a small estate" outside of London—a bold request considering his years of plotting to conquer Britain. The letter was never delivered, but it likely wouldn’t have mattered. Parliament was concerned that Napoleon—a foreign dictator—would be so popular with the British common people that they refused to even let him disembark. Instead, he remained on board the anchored Bellerophon while crowds flocked to catch a glimpse of him until he was banished to St. Helena.MetroPostcard Guide to depictions of Waterloo and Napoleons exile and legacy on postcardsMetroPostcard Guide to depictions of Waterloo and Napoleon's exile and legacy on postcards13. ATTEMPTS TO RESCUE NAPOLEON FROM ST. HELENA INCLUDED AN ELABORATE SUBMARINE PLAN.The insane plan to rescue Napoleon from St. Helena by submarineThe British took extreme caution in securing Napoleon’s final exile location. St. Helena is isolated, ringed with steep cliff faces, and was guarded by some 2800 men armed with 500 cannons. The seas around the tiny island were constantly patrolled by an entire Royal Navy squadron consisting of 11 ships and even a separate island—1200 miles further out in the Atlantic—was stocked with further garrisons to prevent a rescue attempt from South America. They were right to be concerned. During Napoleon’s last six years of life on St. Helena, escape plans included boats, balloons, and even a pair of primitive submarines. Notorious British smuggler Tom Johnson later claimed that in 1820 he was offered £40,000 to rescue the emperor. He hatched a scheme to do so that included a pair of ships with collapsible masts that could sneak up to the island fully submerged and a bosun’s chair to scale the cliffs. It’s unclear how far this plan ever got—or, indeed, if Johnson ever accepted such an assignment—but had it succeeded it would have made for one of the most fantastic prison breaks in all of history.NAPOLEON’S ST. HELENA SUBMARINE14. A HOUSE WAS BUILT FOR NAPOLEON IN NEW ORLEANS.Wikimedia Commons // Public DomainNicholas Girod, the fifth mayor of New Orleans, was a Frenchmen and avid supporter of Napoleon. Following the abdication at Waterloo, Girod helped members of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard escape to the New World. But he also had plans for the emperor himself to move to NOLA. In 1821, Girod, who had retired from the mayoral office, began renovating a home on the corner of Chartres and St. Louis Streets, which he claimed would be Napoleon’s residence after an intended escape expedition by Dominique You (also called Dominique Youx). When Napoleon died later that same year, Girod moved his own family into the building, but even today it is still known as Napoleon House.15. NAPOLEON LIKELY DIED OF STOMACH CANCER—DESPITE 200 YEARS OF ARSENIC SPECULATION.Napoleon died on May 5, 1821, at the age of 51, while still in exile on St. Helena. At the time, his personal physician reported on the death certificate that the emperor had died of stomach cancer, consistent with reports that he suffered from abdominal pain and nausea in the last weeks of his life. But his body remained remarkably well preserved, a common side effect of arsenic poisoning, inspiring centuries of suspicion about foul play. In 1961, elevated levels of arsenic were detected in surviving samples of Napoleon’s hair, fueling these rumors further. Even if he wasn’t assassinated in that way, some theories suggested, perhaps he was accidentally poisoned by the fumes created by the arsenic in his bedroom wallpaper and the damp humidity on St. Helena.Napoleon's Death - napoleon.orgA 2008 study conducted by a team of scientists at Italy’s National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Milan-Bicocca and Pavia, however, disproved the poison suspicions. A detailed analysis of hairs taken from Napoleon’s head at four times in his life—as a boy in Corsica, during his exile on the island of Elba, the day he died on St. Helena, at age 51, and the day after his death—showed that while the levels of arsenic present were astronomical compared to modern standards (about 100 times what is present in the hair of people living today), there was no significant change throughout his life. What’s more, hairs from his son, Napoleon II, and his wife, Empress Joséphine, showed similar—albeit elevated—levels of arsenic. Chronic exposure, in paints and even as a medicine, throughout Napoleon’s life seems to be responsible for the inflammatory 1961 findings. Of course, all that arsenic—not to mention the myriad other toxic chemicals believed to be tonics at the time—likely hastened the emperor’s demise.All images courtesy of Getty Images unless otherwise noted.Who was a better man, Napoleon or Wellington? | CatholicHerald.co.ukNapoleon's Lifelong Interest in ScienceNapoleon Bonaparte was born on this day in 1769 in Corsica. As a young man at school, one instructor said that he “has always been distinguished for his application in mathematics.” (Wikimedia Commons)By Kat EschnerSmithsonian.com | Smithsonian Magazine | SmithsonianNapoleon Bonaparte: General, emperor....science nerd? While the two-time Emperor of the French is, of course, more remembered for his military prowess today than his scientific exploits, he, like many French Revolution figures, was fascinated by science’s potential.As author Steve Jones writes in Revolutionary Science: Transformation and Turmoil in the Age of the Guillotine, revolutionary Paris was “saturated in science.”“Many stellar names in physics and the rest were participants in the great [revolution], while several of those remembered as statesmen and grandees spent a good part of their time at the laboratory bench,” he writes. “Together they built a new world.”Napoleon was a huge part of that new world. Here are three things he did that contributed to post-Revolutionary France’s scientific development:Encouraged inventorsThe revolutionary government, pre-Bonaparte, had already made significant changes in France’s scientific infrastructure, such as modernizing the patent system, abolishing guild control over who could practice a profession and funding a public program to encourage and reward scientific innovation. This system led to, among other things, the creation of French ultramarine, one of the first affordable blue pigments on a painter’s palette.After Napoleon took the reins as Emperor in 1804, writes Jones, “the system expanded and became the Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale, itself provided with a substantial subsidy and run by a consortium of scientists and bankers.” The Société encouraged French innovation both commercial and scientific–among the interesting turns this took was an exploration of the first chess-playing robot.Led a scientific mission to EgyptA few years earlier, in 1798, Napoleon and 54,000 other men landed in Egypt and proceeded to invade the country. However, as the Linda Hall Library writes, this invasion had a distinctly scientific edge. “In addition to soldiers and sailors, Napoleon brought along 150 savants–scientists, engineers, and scholars whose responsibility was to capture, not Egyptian soil, but Egyptian culture and history.”Napoleon didn’t succeed in conquering Egypt as he had recently succeeded in Italy. However, the savants had a great time. They headed back to France in 1801 with an extensive set of notes and drawings about Egyptian culture, history, antiquities, and natural history. The result of their studies was ultimately a 23-volume encyclopedia, Description de l’Égypte. Among their many finds: the Rosetta Stone.Rosetta Stone - WikipediaRosetta Stone - WikipediaChemistry and MathAs his encouragement of the Société shows, the French leader wasn’t just interested in science abroad. After coming back from Egypt, he “showered titles and well-paying positions on many of the scientists who had been participants in Egypt–and on many who had not,” wrote chemist Sol W. Weller. Like many of his revolutionary fellows, Napoleon thought science and technology could “improve the quality of life and to increase the economic status of the French people.”As the result of this general belief, a number of scientific advances happened in the Napoleonic era. Among them: Napoleon’s theorem, which he probably didn’t write. He’s also remembered for encouraging physicist Alessandro Volta, the inventor of one of the first batteries, with one of those cushy positions. And Claude-Louis Berthollet, a scientist who he took with him to Egypt, “introduced the use of chlorine as a bleach,” writes the library, as well as determining the composition of ammonia.Not bad for a hobby.Napoleon: Hero or Tyrant?Napoleón Bonaparte, el emperador de EspañaNapoleon Bonaparte As A ChildNapoleon BonaparteNapoleon Bonaparte was born on the Mediterranean island of Corsica on August 15, 1769. Although the Bonaparte family had maintained its nobility status even after the French takeover of the Island from the Italian Republic of Genoa in 1768, it was not as financially strong as it once was. For that reason, Charles immediately set out to curry favor with the new French regime. France rewarded his services graciously and financed a scholarship for the young Napoleon to the military college of Brienne in France. Napoleon left to begin his education there in 1777, at the age of eight. In 1784, he moved on to the Ecole Militaire (the French military academy) to spend a year studying more advanced tactics and strategy. Although remarkably intelligent, Napoleon graduated 42nd in his class of 52.In 1785, at the age of 16, Napoleon graduated from the Ecole Militaire and became a Second Lieutenant in the Army for artillery, confident and ambitious. To be commissioned as an officer immediately after graduation was a high honor. However, Napoleon's happiness was diminished when his father Charles died on February 24, 1785.In November of 1875, Napoleon set out for Valence, where he was to be stationed. It was peacetime, and the post was very boring. If Napoleon could not win honor in battle, however, he determined to improve himself otherwise: he spent his time in Valence furthering his education through a rigorous reading program, with a particular emphasis on history and geography.In 1789, Revolution was brewing in France. The traditional monarchy (the Ancien Regime) was in trouble. Running out of money, Louis XVI called a meeting of the French Parliament (the "Estates-General") to consider a tax raise. On June 21, however, the Estates-General declared itself a National Assembly, and the French Revolution was underway. On July 14, a Paris mob stormed the Bastille, and on August 28, the new French Republic issued the Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights.Napoleon, on leave from his post during these tumultuous times, returned to Valence in 1791. In the summer of 1792, he decided to head to Paris. On April 2 of that year, France declared war on Austria, and on February 1 it declared war on England. As revolution swept France, an international coalition formed to stop the revolutionary forces from extending across Europe. This coalition included Austria, Britain, Spain, Russia, and the loose confederation of German states and principalities.On August 10, 1792, a Paris mob overran the royal family's residence at the Tuileries, massacring the Swiss Guard that protected the royalty; Napoleon witnessed it all. This event would have a major impact on young Napoleon, and taught him how powerful the people could be, once mobilized. Napoleon would seek to channel that power in his own conquest of Europe.Soon after the mob's storming of the Tuileries, the revolutionaries overthrew the monarchy and guillotined Louis XVI, proclaiming a French Republic on September 25, 1792.Napoleon and IronCommentaryHistorians often emphasize Napoleon's Corsican background, perhaps to explain his egomaniacal attempt to take over the world; Corsica had fallen to a series of conquering nations for years. However, the young Napoleon was shipped off to France for schooling quite early, and his upbringing, philosophy, and mentality were ultimately much more French than they were Corsican. Every bit a rationalist, Napoleon was a true child of the French Enlightenment.Like so many significant historical figures, Napoleon was largely self-taught. Napoleon's future ambitions were certainly apparent in his choice of reading: he read history and geography, obsessing over the stories of kings and generals like Alexander the Great and Hannibal. Indeed, he would later take these men as his examples, using their tactics as models for his own: Alexander the Great of Macedonia built a huge empire, as Napoleon would eventually do, and Hannibal (of Carthage) was famous for crossing the Alps with a huge army (another surprise tactic Napoleon would recreate during his own campaigns). Furthermore, even at this early stage in his career, Napoleon read everything he could about England. He was fascinated by England's strategies and spent considerable time studying England's resources. From his reading at this time, it seems reasonable to suppose that Napoleon may already have been dreaming of his future exploits in some form.Although Napoleon spent hours with his books, Napoleon did not fail to garner important lessons from the events happening around him. Part of the reason for the fall of the Ancien Regime was that it had spent considerable resources supporting the American colonists' revolution against the British. By the 1780s, the royal coffers were drained and the monarchy had few resources. Napoleon would note this, and would stay out of entanglements in the New World that might have diverted resources from his efforts in Europe. (For that reason, he would sell the Louisiana Territory to the U.S.)What was Napoleon doing during the events of 1789? Actually, he was at home in Corsica with his family, on leave from the Army. News of revolution had not yet reached Corsica. However, while in Corsica, Napoleon wrote a letter on behalf of the entire island to the French Royalty complaining about French neglect of Corsica. After this letter, Corsica was considered pro-Revolution.Napoleon Bonaparte and the Poles | Exhibition10 Facts About Napoleon