You already know that at twelve years of age Nelson began his naval career as a midshipman on board his uncle’s ship, the _Raisonnable_. At twenty-one he was a captain in the Royal Navy—“the merest boy of a captain,” as Prince William, afterwards William the Fourth, described him. Nevertheless, there was no better seaman or more gallant officer in the service. Now let us pass on to the year 1789, when Nelson was thirty-one years of age, and was regarded by those who knew him best as one of the finest commanders in the service. In this year that huge upheaval known as the French Revolution took place. For centuries the kings and nobles of France had grossly mismanaged the country and had bitterly oppressed the people. The State was well-nigh bankrupt, and the land was full of starving and despairing men. In July of this fateful year Paris rose, the Bastille, or State prison, was stormed, the prisoners were released, and the garrison slain. All over the country the peasants revolted, murdered the nobles, and burned their castles. The king was powerless to interfere, and the National Assembly, which had now seized the reins of power, passed laws sweeping away the privileges of the nobles and the rights of the Church. Before long the king and his family tried to escape from the country, but they were brought back and treated as prisoners. Meanwhile large numbers of the nobles had sought refuge abroad, and were urging foreign governments to declare war on France. When the German sovereigns threatened invasion, the French declared war against Austria and Prussia. Now we must introduce the most dominant figure of the modern world—Napoleon Bonaparte. He was born in Corsica in the year which saw the American colonists beginning to rise against the British Government. In the first year of American independence he was a “gentleman cadet” in the military school at Paris. Here he was chiefly noteworthy as a silent, haughty lad, full of self-love and of great ambition. He was studious and very fond of mathematics and geography, but his abilities were not striking. None of his teachers prophesied for him the astonishing genius which he afterwards displayed. When Nelson was twenty-seven years of age, Napoleon became a lieutenant of artillery. He was a zealous republican, and was placed in command of the artillery which was to besiege the naval port of Toulon, then in possession of the British, who had been called in by the royalist inhabitants of the town. Napoleon conducted the siege with such skill that the British were forced to evacuate the place, not, however, without burning the French fleet which lay in the harbour and destroying the arsenal.