either his tastes nor his desires, and made a large hole
in his small pay as lieutenant. Indeed, after paying for his board and
lodging, he had left only about seven dollars a month to spend for
clothes and "fun." So he soon tired of this attempt to keep up
appearances on a little money. He took to his books again, studying
philosophy, geography, history, and mathematics. He thought he might
make a living by his pen, and concluded to become an author. So he began
writing a history of his native island--Corsica.

He even tried a novel, but boys of seventeen are not very well fitted
for real literary work, and his first attempts were but poor affairs.
His reading in history and geography drew his attention to Asia; and he
always had a boyish dream of what he should like to attempt and achieve
in the half-fabled land of India, where he believed great success and
vast riches were to be secured by an ambitious young man, who had
knowledge of military affairs, and the taste for leadership. At last he
was ordered away on active service; first to suppress what was known as
the "Two-cent Rebellion" in Lyons, and after that to the town of Douay
in Belgium.

If was while there that bad news came to him from Corsica. His family
was again in trouble. His mother had tried silkworm raising, and failed;
his uncle the canon was very sick; his good friend and the patron of the
family, General Marbeuf, was dead; his brothers were unsuccessful in
getting positions or employment; and something must be done to help
matters in the big bare house in Ajaccio.

Worried over the news, Napoleon tried to get leave of absence, so as to
go to Corsica and see what he could do. But this favor was not granted
him. His anxiety made him low-spirited; this brought on an attack of
fever. The leave of absence was granted him because he was sick; and
early in 1787 he went home to Corsica.

He had been absent from home for eight years. At once he tried to set
matters on a better footing. He fixed up the little house at Melilli,
which had belonged to his mother's father; tried to help his mother in
her attempts at mulberry-growing for the silkworms; saw that his brother
Joseph was enabled to go into the oil-trade; brightened up his uncle the
canon with his political discussions and a correspondence with a famous
French physician as to the cure for his uncle's gout; and finally, being
recalled to his regiment, went back to Paris, and joined his regiment at
A