old bereaved mother, to whom a year will seem
a thousand years, who will wander among relatives without affection,
neighbours without love; and who, when sickness comes, will have no
one to give her a drop of water, or to wipe the sweat from her brow,
or to hold her hand in death. Yet all that is left for her is to wait
and pray for the end, that she may join again her darling.

But it is time to return to Ajaccio itself. At present the attractions
and ornaments of the town consist of a good public library, Cardinal
Fesch's large but indifferent collection of pictures, two monuments
erected to Napoleon, and Napoleon's house. It will always be the chief
pride of Ajaccio that she gave birth to the great emperor. Close to
the harbour, in a public square by the sea-beach, stands an equestrian
statue of the conqueror, surrounded by his four brothers on foot. They
are all attired in Roman fashion, and are turned seaward, to the west,
as if to symbolise the emigration of this family to subdue Europe.
There is something ludicrous and forlorn in the stiffness of the
group--something even pathetic, when we think how Napoleon gazed
seaward from another island, no longer on horseback, no longer
laurel-crowned, an unthroned, unseated conqueror, on S. Helena. His
father's house stands close by. An old Italian waiting-woman, who had
been long in the service of the Murats, keeps it and shows it. She
has the manners of a lady, and can tell many stories of the various
members of the Buonaparte family. Those who fancy that Napoleon was
born in a mean dwelling of poor parents will be surprised to find so
much space and elegance in these apartments. Of course his family was
not rich by comparison with the riches of French or English nobles.
But for Corsicans they were well-to-do, and their house has an air of
antique dignity. The chairs of the entrance-saloon have been literally
stripped of their coverings by enthusiastic visitors; the horse-hair
stuffing underneath protrudes itself with a sort of comic pride, as
if protesting that it came to be so tattered in an honourable service.
Some of the furniture seems new; but many old presses, inlaid with
marbles, agates, and lapis-lazuli, such as Italian families preserve
for generations, have an air of respectable antiquity about them. Nor
is there any doubt that the young Napoleon led his minuets beneath
the stiff girandoles of the formal dancing-room. There, too, in a
dark back chamber, is the