Note 18 — Chapter XXXIV

Footnote 18: Similar instances of repeated and lengthened absence from duty among the young officers are numerous and easily found in the archives. Nevertheless, Buonaparte's case is a very extraordinary example of how a clever person could work the system. The facts are bad enough, but as many cities claimed Homer, so in the Napoleonic legend events of a sojourn at Strasburg about this time were given in great detail. He was in relations with a famous actress and wrote verses which are printed. Even Metternich records that the young Napoleon Bonaparte had just left the Alsatian capital when he himself arrived there in 1788. Later, in 1806, a fencing-master claimed that he had instructed both these great men in the earlier year at Strasburg. Yet the whole tale is impossible. See Napoléon inconnu, Vol. I, p. 204.[Back to Main Text]