We shut our eyes, and we see a picture which is richer than the richest page torn from romance. We see a lean, sallow, awkward, stunted lad step forth from the door of the old house and go forth into the world, with no money in his pocket, and no powerful friends to lift him over the rough places. He is only nine years old when he leaves home, and we see him weep bitterly as he bids his mother good-by. We see him at school in France, isolated, wretched, unable at first to speak the language, fiercely resenting the slights put upon his poverty, his ignorance, his family, his country--suffering, but never subdued. We see him rise against troubles as the eagle breasts the storm. We see him lay the better half of the civilized world at his feet. We see him bring sisters and brothers from the island home, and put crowns on their heads. We see him shower millions upon his mother; and we hear him say to his brother on the day he dons the robes of empire, “Joseph, suppose father were here--!” As long as time shall last, the inspiration of the poor and the ambitious will be the Ajaccio lawyer’s son: not Alexander, the born king; not Cæsar, the patrician; but Napoleon, the moneyless lad from despised Corsica, who stormed the high places of the world, and by his own colossal strength of character, genius, and industry took them! As long as time shall last his name will inspire not only the individual, but the masses also. Wherever a people have heard enough, read enough, thought enough to feel that absolutism in king or priest is wrong; that special privilege in clan or clique is wrong; that monopoly of power, patronage, wealth, or opportunity is wrong, there the name of Napoleon will be spoken with reverence, despot though he became, for in his innermost fibre he was a man of the people, crushing to atoms feudalism, caste, divine right, and hereditary imposture. * * * * * As early as the year 947 there had been Bonapartes in Corsica, for the name of one occurs as witness to a deed in that year. There were also Bonapartes in Italy; and men of that name were classed with the nobles of Bologna, Treviso, and Florence. It is said that during the civil wars of Italy, members of the Bonaparte family took refuge in Corsica, and that Napoleon’s origin can be traced to this source. It is certain that the Bonapartes of Corsica continued to claim kindred with the Italian family, and to class themselves as patricians of Italy; and both these claims were recognized. In Corsica they ranked with the nobility, a family of importance at Ajaccio. At the time of the French invasion the representatives of the family were Lucien, archdeacon of Ajaccio, and Charles Bonaparte, a young man who had been left an orphan at the age of fourteen.