Republic, distinguished this city. Indolence was the dominant spirit
of all classes. . . Almost everywhere I saw only men lulled to
rest by the charms of the most exquisite climate, occupied solely with
the details of a monotonous existence, and tranquilly vegetating under
its beneficent sky." - (On Milan, in 1796, cf. Stendhal,
introduction to the "Chartreuse de Parme.")

[9] "Miot de Melito, I., 131: "Having just left one of the most
civilized cities in Italy, it was not without some emotion that I
found myself suddenly transported to a country (Corsica) which, in its
savage aspect, its rugged mountains, and its inhabitants uniformly
dressed in coarse brown cloth, contrasted so strongly with the rich
and smiling landscape of Tuscany, and with the comfort, I should
almost say elegance, of costume worn by the happy cultivators of that
fertile soil."

[10] Miot de Melito, II., 30: "Of a not very important family of
Sartène." - II., 143. (On the canton of Sartène and the Vendettas of
1796). - Coston, I., 4: "The family of Madame Laetitia, sprung from
the counts of Cotalto, came originally from Italy."

[11] His father, Charles Bonaparte, weak and even frivolous, "too fond
of pleasure to care about his children," and to see to his affairs,
tolerably learned and an indifferent head of a family, died at the age
of thirty-nine of a cancer in the stomach, which seems to be the only
bequest he made to his son Napoleon. - His mother, on the contrary,
serious, authoritative, the true head of a family, was, said Napoleon,
"hard in her affections she punished and rewarded without
distinction, good or bad; she made us all feel it." - On becoming head
of the household, "she was too parsimonious-even ridiculously so.