akness. At eight o'clock he was taken in a carriage
to the place of execution, outside the garden gates of the Luxembourg.
The officer who commanded the firing party wished to bandage his eyes,
but Ney said, quietly--"Are you ignorant that for twenty-five years I
have been accustomed to face both balls and bullets?" Then, raising
his voice, he cried, "I protest against my condemnation. I wish that I
had died for my country in battle. But here is still the field of
honor. _Vive la France!_"

The officer in command, to his credit be it said, was dumb. He seemed
incapable of giving the word to fire; and Ney himself, taking off his
hat, and striking his breast, cried, in a loud voice--"Soldiers, do
your duty--fire!"

Thus died, in his forty-seventh year, "The Bravest of the Brave."

[Signature of the author.]

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

By COLONEL CLAYTON, R.A.

(1769-1821)

[Illustration: "The coronation of Josephine". [TN]]

Napoleon Bonaparte, the second son of Charles Bonaparte and his wife,
Letizia de Ramolino, was born at Ajaccio, in Corsica, on August 15,
1769. In 1779 he entered the Royal Military School of Brienne le
Chateau; there he remained till the autumn of 1784, when he was
transferred to the Military School of Paris, according to the usual
routine. An official report on him by the Inspector of Military
Schools in this year speaks highly of his conduct, and notifies his
great proficiency in mathematics and fair knowledge of history and
geography, but says he is not well up in ornamental studies or in
Latin, and, curiously enough, adds that he will make an excellent
sailor. Napoleon lost his father in 1785, and the same year he was
commissioned as second-lieutenant of artillery, in which capacity he
served at Valence and other garrisons. He spent his periods of leave
in Corsica, and appears to have wished to play the leading part in the
history of his native island, showing the first signs of his ambitious
and energetic character. During the critical times following the first
French Revolution, he at first joined the moderate party of Paoli;
but, trying for military power, though by untiring activity and
reckless audacity he succeeded in being elected lieutenant-colonel of
the National Volunteers of Ajaccio, he failed in an attempt to seize
that town and was obliged to return to France. The French Government
soon made an endeavor to crush Paoli and do away with Corsican
privileges, and the islander