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Updated: May 7, 2025
What does her past and the mystery of her origin matter to me; what does it matter whether she is the true descendant of the god of the sea and the sublime Lagides or the bastard of a Polish drunkard and a harlot of the Marbeuf quarter?
The climax of the miserable business was reached when to a taunt that his ancestry was nothing, "his father a wretched tipstaff," Napoleon replied by challenging his tormentor to fight a duel. For this offense he was put in confinement while the instigator went unpunished. It was by the intervention of Marbeuf that his young friend was at length released.
I will seek out the principal. I will explain it all. He shall see it rightly, and you shall not be thus disgraced. No, sir! not if I, General Marbeuf, intrench myself alone with you behind what is left of your slushy snow-fort yonder, and fight all Brienne school in your behalf teachers and all. So cheer up, lad! we will make it right." General Marbeuf did make it all right.
This Polish doctor, since so celebrated, then lived in Chaillot, rue Marbeuf, in an isolated house where he occupied the first floor. General Romanus Zarnowski lived on the second floor, and the servants of the two refugees inhabited the garret of this little house, which had but two stories.
Years had passed, and it was evident that his suit was hopeless. How could substantial advantage be secured from the King? His friends, General Marbeuf in particular, were of the opinion that he could profit to a certain extent at least by securing for his children an education at the expense of the state.
He was now about to make a final effort, and seek personally at the Tuscan capital official recognition with a view to relearning his native tongue, now almost forgotten, and to obtaining subsequent employment of any kind that might offer in the land of his birth. Lucien, the archdeacon, was seriously ill, and General Marbeuf, the last influential friend of the family, had died.
The next morning, Ganimard called at 36, Rue Marbeuf. After questioning the concierge, he made him open the door of the ground-floor flat on the right, a very comfortable apartment, elegantly furnished, in which, however, he discovered nothing beyond some cinders in the fireplace. Two friends had come, four days earlier, to burn all compromising papers.
If I recollect rightly, his mother was at the time on a visit to M. de Marbeuf, or some other friend. The result of Napoleon's obstinacy was, that he was kept three whole days on bread and cheese, and that cheese was not 'broccio'. However, be would not cry: he was dull, but not sulky.
Gradually, however, he calmed down, and told General Marbeuf the whole story. The general was indignant at the sentence. But he laughed heartily at the idea of this fourteen-year-old boy challenging another to a duel. "Why, what a fire-eater it is!" he cried. "But you had provocation, boy. This Bouquet is a sneak, and your teacher is a tyrant. But we will change it all; see, now!
His old friend, General Marbeuf, was no longer in condition to help him; and, indeed, Napoleon's pride would not permit him to receive aid from friends, even when it was forced upon him. "I am too poor to run into debt," he declared. So he became again a hermit, as in the early days at Brienne school.
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