Journal of Napoleon Bonaparte

Ajaccio, 1769 – Brienne-le-Château, 1785

December 25, 1778 – Ajaccio

I was born on a proud, rocky island, cradled by wind and the songs of the maquis. My mother says a storm was raging when I came into the world. Perhaps that is why I’ve always felt something wild inside me — a force I cannot name, a longing for greatness, though I do not yet know what kind.

Father says we descend from ancient Tuscan nobility, but I can see our worn clothes, our modest meals, and the way people look at us with thinly veiled disdain. The local notables glance down on us. But I return their gaze. One day, this name — Buonaparte — will no longer be met with condescension. It will become a weapon, a banner.

April 3, 1780 – Autun School

Here I am in France — or rather, in a France that does not welcome me. They mock my accent, my silences, my thin frame. They call me “the little Corsican” as they might say “the little savage.” I let them speak. I watch. I remember. The world belongs to those who forget nothing.

I’ve begun reading Plutarch. The lives of Caesar, Alexander, Lycurgus fascinate me. There is no greatness without discipline, no future without ambition. Each page is another stone laid in the fortress I’m building inside myself.

October 8, 1781 – Brienne

The military school at Brienne is cold, and the boys are cruel. But the books warm me. I study battles the way others dream of love. My hands — too delicate for tilling earth — can already draw the lines of a front, sense the cracks in an enemy’s position.

I’m not liked here. I know it. But I don’t care. I’ve decided not to be liked — I’ve decided to be necessary. And to be necessary, one must first become formidable.

February 17, 1783 – Brienne, under snow

I often think of Corsica. Of its mountains, of the sea that holds it like a jealous mother. I still hear the village voices, the songs by firelight, the wind rustling through olive trees. But I feel, too, that the island cannot contain what I am becoming.

I love France, even though it rejects me. I love her not as one loves a homeland, but as one loves a great idea. She is vast, cultured, unstable. Perhaps she waits for a master.

August 10, 1785 – Paris

I have been admitted to the École Militaire in Paris, to become an artillery officer. My father died a few months ago. He passed quietly, as if not to disturb anyone. His life was a string of compromises; mine must be a string of conquests.

I am fifteen. And already, I feel the world beginning to watch me. Not yet with admiration. But it is starting to hear my footsteps.

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