Reaching his little hands out in the direction of the Continent,
lying not far distant over the waters of the Mediterranean, he made
this demand; and while, of course, his desire was not granted upon
the instant, it is the testimony of history that he never lost sight
of that cherished object.
After providing Napoleon with eleven other brothers and sisters,
Charles Bonaparte died, and left his good and faithful wife Letitia
to care for the future greatness of his family, a task rendered
somewhat the more arduous than it might otherwise have been by the
lack of income; but the good woman, who had much of Napoleon's nature
in her make-up, was equal to the occasion. She had her sons to help
her, and was constantly buoyed up by the expressed determination of
her second child to place her beyond the reach of want in that future
day when the whole world lay grovelling at his feet.
"Do not worry, mother," Napoleon said. "Let Joseph and Lucien and
Louis and Jerome and the girls be educated; as for me, I can take
care of myself. I, who at the age of three have mastered the Italian
language, have a future before me. I will go to France, and then--"
"Well! what then?" his mother asked.
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