at is good for my health.’
The Buonaparte family’s fortunes took a turn for the worse when Napoleon’s father died in 1785. His brothers Lucien and Joseph abandoned their own studies and returned to Corsica to support the family: Napoleon continued his studies under conditions of real hardship.
It is possible that the military academy had allowed Napoleon to take his examination early so that he would at least earn a meagre salary as a newly-commissioned officer. He passed his examinations at a less than impressive forty-second place, and took up his post with an artillery regiment. Even then, Napoleon’s army pay was barely enough to survive on.
In a poignant letter to his mother, which attempts to put a brave face on his condition, Napoleon wrote: ‘I have no other resource but work. I dress but once in eight days; I sleep but little since my illness [Napoleon’s health had nearly broken down late in 1788]; it is incredible; I retire at ten (to save candles) and rise at four in the morning. I take but one meal a day, at three; that is good for my health.’
For the rest of his life, perhaps as a result of the training provided by these hard times, Napoleon was able to maintain a punishing workload – both as a soldier and as an administrator – with little sleep and on a frugal diet.
When the revolution broke out, Napoleon returned to Corsica to support the Corsican nationalist movement. He became the leader of a group of volunteers, and appealed to the new revolutionary National Assembly in Paris for aid. He was ecstatic when the Assembly declared that Corsica was part of the new France. The newly-graduated officer in the army of Louis XVI had become an ardent supporter of the Revolution.
To grasp the significant moment
It was not until 1793 that Napoleon was first able to demonstrate his ability to grasp the significant moment, to devise the successful strategy, to lead from the front and by example. In this year – the year in which Louis XVI had been guillotined, at the beginning of what was to become ‘The Terror’ – Napoleon, now a twenty-four-year-old artillery captain, was given the opportunity to take control of artillery for the siege of Toulon.
At this time, there were still significant pockets of royalist insurrection against the revolution throughout the provinces, especially in the western Vendée region and in the South East. When royalist Marseille was retaken in August by the Jacobins, with appalling reprisals, the counter-revolutionaries holding Toulon called on the British Royal Navy to help them, along with their Spanish and other allies. Britain had been at war with France since the formation of the ‘First Coalition’ of European allies against revolutionary France, formed earlier that year after the execution of Louis XVI.
The English fleet anchored in the harbour at Toulon was commanded by Rear Admiral Hood. Captain Horatio Nelson was with Hood’s fleet, in command of the 64-gun ‘third-rater’ Agamemnon.
First- second- and, indeed, third-raters
‘Ships of the line’, that is to say, ships of the line of battle, were rated by size. A ‘first rate’ ship of the line had more than one hundred guns, typically on three decks; a third-rate, like Nelson’s Agamemnon, had between sixty-four and eighty guns, usually on two gun-decks.
The terminology, as you will have noticed, has taken on an unfairly derogatory popular meaning: to be considered ‘second rate’ is now unfortunate, whereas there was nothing ‘second-rate’ about a second rate – a fearsome fighting ship with some ninety or more guns on three decks, which was merely a slightly smaller (and slightly cheaper) version of a first rate.
The third rate Agamemnon had 64 guns on two decks; such ships could be argued to offer the best compromise between speed, handling, fire power and cost.
From King’s officer to revolutionary
Napoleon’s career – like that of many other young officers – had taken him from being a member of the King’s army to becoming a member of the French revolutionary army. He was fortunate that his Corsican ancestry, though undoubtedly ‘aristocratic’, was