We are apt to forget that this mighty conqueror, whom Carlyle calls “our last great man,” had a childhood at all. He was born nearly a century and a half ago, on the 15th August 1769 to be exact, in the little town of Ajaccio, the capital of picturesque Corsica. This miniature island rises a bold tree-covered rock in the blue waters of the Mediterranean, fifty miles west of the coast of Italy. It had been sold to France by the Republic of Genoa the previous year, but the inhabitants had fought for their independence with praiseworthy determination. Then civil war broke out, and the struggle finally ended three months before the birth of the boy who was to become the ruler of the conquering nation. The Corsicans had their revenge in time, although in a way very different from what they could have expected. Letizia Bonaparte, Napoleon’s mother, was as beautiful as she was energetic, and her famous son never allowed anyone to speak ill of her. “My excellent mother,” said he, not long before his death, “is a woman of courage and of great talent ... she is capable of doing everything for me,” and he added that the high position which he attained was due largely to the careful way in which she brought him up. “It is to my mother, to her good precepts and upright example, that I owe my success and any great thing I have accomplished,” he averred, while to a general he remarked, “My mother was a superb woman, a woman of ability and courage.” A truly great man always speaks well of his mother. Napoleon was Letizia’s fourth child, two having died in infancy, while Joseph, the surviving son, was still unable to toddle when the latest addition to the family was in his cradle. His father was a happy-go-lucky kind of man of good ancestry, a lawyer by profession, who on the landing of the French had resigned the pen for the sword. He enlisted in the army raised by Pascal Paoli to defend the island, for the Corsicans were then a very warlike people and much sought after as soldiers, and it is supposed by some that he acted as Paoli’s secretary. It is certain that the patriot showed him marked favour, which was never repaid. When Paoli and his loyal band were forced to make their escape to the hospitable shores of England, Charles Bonaparte meekly accepted the pardon offered to those who would lay down their arms and acknowledge Louis XV. of France as their King. After events proved the wisdom of his choice, but scarcely justified his action.