This was due to excess of foresight on her part; she had known want,
and her terrible sufferings were never out of her mind. . . .
Paoli had tried persuasion with her before resorting to force. . .
. Madame replied heroically, as a Cornelia would have done. . . .
From 12 to 15,000 peasants poured down from the mountains of Ajaccio;
our house was pillaged and burnt, our vines destroyed, and our flocks.
. . . In other respects, this woman, from whom it would have been
so difficult to extract five francs, would have given up everything to
secure my return from Elba, and after Waterloo she offered me all she
possessed to restore my affairs." (" Mémorial," May 29, 1816, and
"Mémoires d'Antonomarchi," Nov. 18, 1819. - On the ideas and ways
of Bonaparte's mother, read her "Conversation" in "Journal et
Mémoires," vol. IV., by Stanislas Girardin.) Duchesse d'Abrantès, "
Mémoires," II., 318, 369. "Avaricious out of all reason except on a
few grave occasions. . . . No knowledge whatever of the usages of
society. . . . very ignorant, not alone of our literature, but of
her own." - Stendhal, "Vie de Napoleon": "The character of her son is
to be explained by the perfectly Italian character of Madame
Laetitia."

[12] The French conquest is effected by armed force between July 30,
1768, and May 22, 1769. The Bonaparte family submitted May 23, 1769,
and Napoleon was born on the following 15th of August.

[13] Antonomarchi, "Mémoires," October 4, 1819. "Mémorial," May 29,
1816.

[14] Miot de Melito, II., 33: "The day I arrived at Bocognano two men
lost their lives through private vengeance. About eight years before
this one of the inhabitants of the canton had killed a neighbor, the