with
kindness and overwhelmed him with favors. Of the hundred and
thirty-two scholars resident during Buonaparte's time, eighty-three
were boarders at four hundred dollars each; none of these attained
distinction, the majority did not even pass their examinations. The
rest were scholars of the King, and were diligent; but even of these
only one or two were really able men.

It was in the city of Mme. Permon's residence, at Montpellier, that on
the twenty-fourth of February, 1785, Charles de Buonaparte died. This
was apparently a final and mortal blow to the Buonaparte fortunes, for
it seemed as if with the father must go all the family expectations.
The circumstances were a fit close to the life thus ended. Feeling his
health somewhat restored, and despairing of further progress in the
settlement of his well-worn claim by legal methods, he had determined
on still another journey of solicitation to Versailles. With Joseph as
a companion he started; but a serious relapse occurred at sea, and
ashore the painful disease continued to make such ravages that the
father and son set out for Montpellier to consult the famous
specialists of the medical faculty at that place. It was in vain, and,
after some weeks, on February twenty-fourth the heartbroken father
breathed his last. Having learned to hate the Jesuits, he had become
indifferent to all religion, and is said by some to have repelled with
his last exertions the kindly services of Fesch, who was now a
frocked priest, and had hastened to his brother-in-law's bedside to
offer the final consolations of the Church to a dying man. Others
declare that he turned again to the solace of religion, and was
attended on his death-bed by the Abbe Coustou. Joseph, prostrated by
grief, was taken into Mme. Permon's house and received the tenderest
consolation.[8]

[Footnote 8: Memoires du roi Joseph, I, 29.]

Failure as the ambitious father had been, he had nevertheless been so
far the support of his family in their hopes of advancement. Sycophant
and schemer as he had become, they recognized his untiring energy in
their behalf, and truly loved him. He left them penniless and in debt,
but he died in their service, and they sincerely mourned for him. On
the twenty-third of March the sorrowing boy wrote to his great-uncle,
the archdeacon Lucien, a letter in eulogy of his father and begging
the support of his uncle as guardian. This appointment was legally
made not long aft