sidence in Auxonne. He had been
prepared for confirmation at Brienne by a confessor who was now in
retirement at Dole, the same to whom when First Consul he wrote an
acknowledgment of his indebtedness, adding: "Without religion there is
no happiness, no future possible. I commend me to your prayers." The
dwelling of this good man was the frequent goal of his walks abroad.
Again, he once jocularly asked a friend who visited him in his room,
if he had heard mass that morning, opening, as he spoke, a trunk, in
which was the complete vestment of a priest. The regimental chaplain,
who must have been his friend, had confided it to him for
safe-keeping. Finally, it was in these dark and never-forgotten days
of trial that Louis was confirmed, probably by the advice of his
brother. Even though Napoleon had collaborated with Fesch in the paper
on the oath of priests to the constitution, though he himself had been
mobbed in Corsica as the enemy of the Church, it does not appear that
he had any other than decent and reverent feelings toward religion and
its professors.

CHAPTER XII.

The Revolution in the Rhone Valley.

A Dark Period -- Buonaparte, First Lieutenant -- Second
Sojourn in Valence -- Books and Reading -- The National
Assembly of France -- The King Returns from Versailles --
Administrative Reforms in France -- Passing of the Old Order
-- Flight of the King -- Buonaparte's Oath to Sustain the
Constitution -- His View of the Situation -- His
Revolutionary Zeal -- Insubordination -- Impatience with
Delay -- A Serious Blunder Avoided -- Return to Corsica.

[Sidenote: 1791.]

The tortuous course of Napoleon's life for the years from 1791 to 1795
has been neither described nor understood by those who have written in
his interest. It was his own desire that his biographies, in spite of
the fact that his public life began after Rivoli, should commence with
the recovery of Toulon for the Convention. His detractors, on the
other hand, have studied this prefatory period with such evident bias
that dispassionate readers have been repelled from its consideration.
And yet the sordid tale well repays perusal; for in this epoch of his
life many of his characteristic qualities were tempered and ground to
the keen edge they retained throughout. Swept onward toward the
trackless ocean of political chaos, the youth seemed afloat without
oars or compass: in reality, his craft was well u