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Updated: June 18, 2025
"Who knows?" he boasted one day to Panoria; "perhaps I will become a colonel, and come back here and be a greater man than Paoli. Perhaps I may free Corsica. What would you think of that, Panoria?" "I should think it funny for a boy who went to school in France to come away and fight France," said practical Panoria. But Napoleon would not see it in this way.
Why, if you touch those boys just with your little finger, they go running to Mamma Letitia, crying that we've scratched the skin off." Panoria had her idea of such "cry-babies" of boys; but Napoleon interested her most. "But, Eliza," she said, "what does he say Napoleon when he talks to himself in his grotto over there?" "You shall hear," Eliza replied.
Your great uncle, the Canon Lucien?" "No one gave it to him, child," Eliza replied. "Napoleon found it in the rocks, and teased Uncle Joey Fesch to fix it up for him. Uncle Joey did so, and Napoleon comes here so often now that we call it Napoleon's grotto." "Does he come here all alone?" asked Panoria. "Alone? Of course," answered Eliza. "Why should he not? He is big enough."
"But if you did wish it, would you do it, Napoleon?" she asked. "Of course," the boy replied. "Oh, it is easy to brag," said Panoria; "but when your great man, your uncle the canon, is around, you are no braver, I'll be bound, than little Pauline, or even Eliza here." By this time Eliza, too, had grown brave; and she said stoutly to her friend, "What! I am not brave, you say? You shall see."
Then as Saveria, turning, bade them hurry on, Eliza caught Panoria's hand, and ran toward the nurse; but as she did so, she said to Panoria, boastingly and rashly, "Come into our house! If I do not eat some of those very pears out of that very basket of our uncle the canon's, then you may call me a coward, Panoria!" "Would you then dare?" cried Panoria. "I'll not believe it unless I see you."
He would free Corsica from French tyranny, make his father rich, and his mother free from worry, and, in fact, accomplish all those impossible things that every boy of spirit and ambition is certain he could do if he might but have the chance. As he approached his home, he saw little Panoria swinging on the gate.
"One needs but to cry, 'Your uncle the canon, and down you all tumble like a house of cards. What! is Saveria, too, afraid of him?" "No more than I am," said Napoleon stoutly. "No more than you!" laughed Panoria. "Why, Napoleon, you did not dare to even touch the pears of your uncle the canon." "Because I did not wish to, Panoria," replied Napoleon. "Did not dare to," corrected Panoria.
If he could but have the great estates in this island which are his by right, he would be rich enough to do everything for us. But some bad people have taken the land; and even though Papa Charles is a count, he is not rich enough to send us all to school; so our uncle, the Canon Lucien, teaches us many lessons. He is not cross, let me tell you, Panoria; but he is well, a little severe."
"Why, child, child! what are you doing?" she exclaimed. "These are your uncle the canon's." Napoleon withdrew his hand as sharply as if a bee amid the fruit had stung him. "Ah, is it so?" he cried; but Panoria, not having before her eyes the fear of the Bonapartes' bugbear, "their uncle the canon," laughed loudly. "What funny people you all are!" she exclaimed.
"What, then, does he whip you?" asked Panoria. "No, he does not; but if he says we should be whipped, then Mamma Letitia hands us over to Nurse Mina Saveria; and she, I promise you, does not let us off from the whipping." All this Eliza admitted as if with vivid recollections of the vigor of Nurse Saveria's arm. Panoria glanced toward the grotto amid the rocks.
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