I have been thus diffuse on his ancestry, because English satirists could not tell the truth on the subject--they were too swayed by the passion of the moment, and had to pander to the cravings of the mob. Take an example, from a broad sheet published in 1803, when our island was in deadly fear of invasion, a ‘History of Buonaparte.’ ‘Napoleon Buonaparte is the son of a poor lawyer of Ajaccio, in Corsica, in which city he was born on the 15th of August, 1769. His grandfather, Joseph, originally a butcher of the same place, was ennobled by Count Nieuhoff, some time King of Corsica. He was the son of Carlos Buona, who once kept a liquor shop, or tavern, but who, being convicted of robbery and murder, was condemned to the Gallies, where he died in 1724. His wife, La Birba, the mother of Joseph, died in the House of Correction at Geneva (? Genoa). On the 3rd May, 1736, when Porto Vecchio was attacked, Joseph Buona brought to the assistance of King Theodore a band of vagabonds which, during the civil war, had chosen him for its leader. In return, Theodore, on the following day, created him a noble, and added to his name _Buona_ the termination _Parté_. Joseph Buonaparte’s wife _Histria_, was the daughter of a journeyman tanner of Bastia, also in Corsica.’ And yet one more, from another equally veracious ‘life.’ ‘Buonaparte’s great-grandfather kept a wine-house for factors (like our gin shops), and, being convicted of murder and robbery, he died a galley slave at Genoa, in 1724: his wife was likewise an accomplice, and she died in the House of Correction at Genoa in 1734. His grandfather was a butcher of Ajaccio, and his grandmother daughter of a journeyman tanner at Bastia. His father was a low petty-fogging lawyer, who served and betrayed his country by turns, during the Civil Wars. After France conquered Corsica, he was a spy to the French Government, and his mother their trull. What is bred in the bone will not come out of the flesh.’ CHAPTER II. DESCENT FROM THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK--ANAGRAMS, ETC., ON HIS NAME--THE BEAST OF THE APOCALYPSE--HIS MOTHER’S ACCOUNT OF HIS BIRTH. The foregoing was the sort of stuff given to our grandfathers for history; nothing could be bad enough for Boney, _the Corsican Ogre_--nay, they even tortured his name to suit political purposes. It was hinted that the keeper of ‘the Man with the Iron Mask,’ who was said to be no other than the twin (and elder) brother of Louis XIV., was named _Bon part_; that the said keeper had a daughter, with whom the Man in the Mask fell in love, and to whom he was privately married; that their children received their mother’s name, and were secretly conveyed to Corsica, where the name was converted into _Bonaparte_, or _Buonaparte_; and that one of these children was the ancestor of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was thus entitled to be recognised, not only as of French origin, but as the direct descendant of the rightful heir to the throne of France.