So Napoleon, who was born a few months after this event, was a
Frenchman. He was the fourth child of his parents, but only Joseph, a
year older than himself, was living; and though by-and-by Napoleon
completely ruled his elder brother, for a long while the two stood apart
from the younger children, Joseph sharing Napoleon's affections with
Marianna, his next sister, who died at the age of five. The others who
lived were all much younger, Lucien, the next, being born in 1775.
Madame Bonaparte was so much occupied after Napoleon's birth with trying
to put things straight which had been upset by the war that she was
forced to get a nurse for him. This woman, Camilla Ilari, was the wife
of a man who picked up a living on the seashore, and all her life was
devoted to her nursling, whom she always addressed as 'my son.'
Napoleon, on his part, fully returned her affection, and was never too
great or too busy to give her proofs of it. Thirty-five years later,
when the world was at his feet, she sent to say that she wished to be
present at his coronation in Nôtre Dame. 'There is no one who will be
more welcome,' was his reply, and when she had made the journey and
braved the perils of the sea, and weary days of travel that seem so
strange and so long when you do not understand a word of what is being
said around you—when all this was over, and the Tuileries was reached,
she found Méneval, the Emperor's own secretary, awaiting her, saying
that he was to place himself at her orders and to show her everything
she wished to see. Oh, how happy that old woman was, and what stories
she had to tell when she got back to Corsica! She had long talks with
'Madame Mère,' as the Emperor's mother was now called, and with all her
children, one by one. Even Marianna—or Elise, to give her the new name
she thought more elegant—and Caroline, the youngest, forgot for a few
minutes how grand they had become, and laughed as Camilla reminded them
of the old days and the scoldings she had given them, while Paulette,
who gave herself no airs, but only wanted admiration and petting, asked
fifty questions all at once, and never waited for the answers!
Of course, Camilla had no intention of going home without seeing the
wife of 'mon fils,' and Napoleon's wife, Josephine, sent for her into
her rooms, and, though she could not make out a word that Camilla said,
smiled and nodded in reply, and presented her with two beautiful
diamonds. Most wonderful of all, His Holiness Pope Pius VII. announced
that he wished to give her an audience! Camilla was the proudest woman
in the world when she received that message, but at the same time she
was rather frightened. Why, she had never spoken to a bishop, and how
was she to behave to a Pope? However, M. Méneval, who was the messenger,
suggested that obedience was her first duty, so Camilla rose up and
followed him meekly into the apartments of His Holiness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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