During the first twenty years of his life, young Napoleon
was a professional Corsican patriot--a Corsican Sinn Feiner,
who hoped to deliver his beloved country from the yoke of the
bitterly hated French enemy. But the French revolution had
unexpectedly recognised the claims of the Corsicans and gradually
Napoleon, who had received a good training at the military
school of Brienne, drifted into the service of his adopted country.
Although he never learned to spell French correctly or
to speak it without a broad Italian accent, he became a Frenchman.
In due time he came to stand as the highest expression
of all French virtues. At present he is regarded as the symbol
of the Gallic genius.
Napoleon was what is called a fast worker. His career
does not cover more than twenty years. In that short span
of time he fought more wars and gained more victories and
marched more miles and conquered more square kilometers and
killed more people and brought about more reforms and generally
upset Europe to a greater extent than anybody (including
Alexander the Great and Jenghis Khan) had ever managed
to do.
He was a little fellow and during the first years of his life
his health was not very good. He never impressed anybody
by his good looks and he remained to the end of his days very
clumsy whenever he was obliged to appear at a social function.
Pages:
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378