Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE By Honore De Balzac Translated by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell. PREPARER'S NOTE The Napoleon of the People was originally published in Le Medicin de Campagne (The Country Doctor). It is a story told to a group of peasants by the character of Goguelat, an ex-soldier who served under Napoleon in an infantry regiment. It was later included in Folk-tales of Napoleon: Napoleonder from the Russian, a collection of stories by various authors. This translation is by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell. THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE Napoleon, you see, my friends, was born in Corsica, which is a French island warmed by the Italian sun; it is like a furnace there, everything is scorched up, and they keep on killing each other from father to son for generations all about nothing at all--'tis a notion they have. To begin at the beginning, there was something extraordinary about the thing from the first; it occurred to his mother, who was the handsomest woman of her time, and a shrewd soul, to dedicate him to God, so that he should escape all the dangers of infancy and of his after life; for she had dreamed that the world was on fire on the day he was born. It was a prophecy! So she asked God to protect him, on condition that Napoleon should re-establish His holy religion, which had been thrown to the ground just then. That was the agreement; we shall see what came of it. Now, do you follow me carefully, and tell me whether what you are about to hear is natural.