Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume II. Walter Scott

1

There was an absurd debate about the spelling of the name, which became, as trifles often do, a sort of party question. Buonaparte had disused the superfluous u, which his father retained in the name, and adopted a more modern spelling. This was represented on one side as an attempt to bring his name more nearly to the French idiom; and, as if it had been a matter of the last moment, the vowel was obstinately replaced in the name, by a class of writers who deemed it politic not to permit the successful general to relinquish the slightest mark of his Italian extraction, which was in every respect impossible for him either to conceal or to deny, even if he had nourished such an idea. In his baptismal register, his name is spelled Napoleone Bonaparte, though the father subscribes, Carlo Buonaparte. The spelling seems to have been quite indifferent. – S. – "During Napoleon's first campaign in Italy, he dropped the u. In this change he had no other motive than to assimilate the orthography to the pronunciation, and to abbreviate his signature." – Bourrienne, tom. i., p. 3.

2

The book alluded to is entitled "Ragguaglio Storico di tutto l'occorso, giorno per giorno, nel Sacco de Roma dell anno 1527, scritto da Jacopo Buonaparte, gentiluomo Samminiatese, chi vi si trovò presente." In 1568, a Giuseppe Buonaparte published a comedy, entitled "La Vedova." Copies of both these works are in the British Museum.

3

Paul the Fifth.

4

"I sent Clarke to Florence as ambassador, where he employed himself in nothing but turning over the old musty records of the place, in search of proofs of the nobility of my family. He so plagued me with letters upon the subject, that I was forced to bid him cease from troubling either his head or mine with this nonsense about nobility, – that I was the first of my family." – Napoleon, Voice, &c., vol. i., p. 401.

5

"They were of Tuscan origin. In the middle ages they figured as senators of the republics of Florence, San Miniato, Bologna, Sarzana, and Treviso, and as prelates attached to the Court of Rome." – Napoleon, Memoirs, vol. iii., y. 7.

6

Las Cases, vol. i., p. 108.

7

Died at Trieste, 9th August, 1820. "On accidentally reading, at St. Helena, the account of her death, Napoleon exclaimed, 'Eliza has just shown us the way; death, which seemed to have overlooked our family, now begins to strike it. I shall be the next to follow her to the grave.'" – Antommarchi, vol. i., p. 384.

8

She died at the Borghese Palace, near Florence, 9th June, 1825.

9

"I was quietly pursuing my studies whilst my father was struggling against the violence of a painful agony. He died, and I had not the consolation to close his eyes: that sad duty was reserved for Joseph, who acquitted himself of it with all the zeal of an affectionate son." – Napoleon, Antommarchi, vol. i., p. 240.

10

"The patrimonial house of Napoleon, at present in the possession of M. Ramolini, member of the Chamber of Deputies for the department of Corsica, continues an object of great veneration with travellers and military men." – Benson's Corsica, p. 4.

11

Las Cases, vol. i., p. 120.

12

"In my infancy I was noisy and quarrelsome, and feared nobody. I beat one, scratched another, and made myself formidable to all." – Napoleon, Antommarchi, vol. i., p. 327.

13

Benson's Sketches of Corsica, p. 4. – S.

14

The mother of Letitia Ramolini, wife of Carlo Buonaparte, married a Swiss officer in the French service, named Fesch, after the death of Letitia's father. – S.

15

They were, many years since, communicated to the author by Messrs. Joseph and Louis Law, brothers of General Lauriston, Buonaparte's favourite aide-de-camp. These gentlemen, or at least Joseph, were

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