Chapter 1: My Brother Napoleon

　The city of Ajaccio had been overcast and rainy for the past few days, so much so that even the sea seemed to be wet at last. The endless downpour, thick and sticky, came pelting down toward the bay from the heights of a sky that seemed to never dry up. The sea rumbled like a gray, soft sponge in the misty bay.

　　But the water did not seem to move in the persistent rain; only an imperceptible, broad bulge, far away, lifted a hazy vapor over the sea toward the harbor, enclosed in a sodden free port. The city itself rose in a vapor that swept over the watery walls to meet the vapor from the sea. Whichever direction one faced, it seemed that all one breathed was water, and the air was finally drinkable.

　　It was in the midst of this watery vapor that Joseph Bonaparte, the eldest of the Bonaparte family, thin and long as a bamboo pole, was holding an umbrella and walking along the beach of the coast toward the cliffs that jutted out into the sea yonder. That cliff, now colored the same greenish-gray as the sea by the endless rains, reached out into the bay like an arm. In the dry summers of the Mediterranean, Joseph and his younger siblings used to come here to fish from the reef below the cliffs, or to look for oysters in all kinds of shells. And that's when the family's runt of a penis, the oldest of the family, would grab a book all by himself and run inside a small natural cave in the middle of the cliffs to get some reading done.

　　"But now, it's raining? This guy who doesn't let people worry about him, did he run inside that cave again?" Joseph muttered in his heart as he walked towards the cliff.

　　That unhelpful fellow was his second brother, Napoleon Bonaparte, who was destined to leave a colorful mark in history. At this time, however, His Majesty, who would later shake Europe with his might, was at this time just a small child who gave people headaches.

　　Among Joseph's seven younger siblings, Napoleon was the one who gave him the most headaches. This guy may be because always grow taller, be ridiculed, so the character is very some eccentric. Even among the siblings, there were not many who could get along well with him. And the small Napoleon, surprisingly, was also a violent maniac. Once ridiculed, or because of other reasons and other people have conflicts, he always like to directly use violence to solve the dispute.

　　Honestly speaking, Napoleon's size is actually very unsuitable for such a way. Because theoretically speaking, fighting is something that relies on strength, and strength is inextricably linked to size. Otherwise, why would boxing matches be divided into weight classes? Since size and strength alone would not do, and Napoleon was keen on using violence to solve problems. As a result, the little man developed two sets of tactics to make up for his lack of strength.

　　The first is to use unconventional means to attack weaknesses. For example, when people are not defended, with teeth bite, or with the knee to attack people's vitals.

　　The second move is "the first to complain". This trick is generally used against one's brothers. Anyone who has many brothers did not fight with them as a child. Every time a fight, when the mother Letizia panicked and ran to stop, the first to jump out to complain, and the most will make a "I have suffered a great deal of aggression" look, is Napoleon. And because Napoleon had practiced in his mind many times how to play poor and how to deceive his mother before he made his move, every time he made the first move to beat the other brothers, but in the end it was the other brothers who were scolded by their mother.

　　In this way, none of the brothers liked Napoleon very much, but they were all a little afraid of him and were not willing to go against his wishes. There was only one exception, and that person was not only not afraid of this Napoleon routine, but could even often dominate Napoleon. This man was Napoleon's elder brother, Joseph. This is because once, Napoleon and Joseph had a conflict, according to the previous practice, Napoleon first move, while Joseph did not defense, ruthless kicked Joseph's small stomach. At that time, the defenseless Joseph was kicked backward, fell to the ground, the back of the head touched on a piece of sharp stone, suddenly blood flowed all over the ground, unconscious. Little Napoleon also completely stunned, panicked. Rushed to call his mother ...

　　Joseph fainted for two whole days before waking up. After waking up, not only did he not recognize his family, he could not even speak. No, to be precise, he suddenly could not speak the Corsican dialect (a kind of Italian), and when he opened his mouth, he spoke a strange and incomprehensible language, which sounded a bit like English, but with many differences. The family thought he was possessed by the devil. (According to Catholic documents, suddenly speaking a language that no one understands is a typical manifestation of demonic possession.) If it were not for the fact that Joseph's father, Carlo, was an aristocrat (albeit a minor one), Joseph's end would have been very tragic. Carlo invited the bishop, Mignon Lament, and had him perform an exorcism on Joseph.

　　This ceremony was effective, and after the ceremony was completed, although Joseph had not fully recovered - he still could not speak the Corsican dialect, and his memory had not been restored - at least, he no longer spoke that strange, fearful, possibly hellish language anymore.

　　"The devil was banished from him." Bishop Mignonier said, "But like a house set on fire, though we put out the fire, what remains is likely to be nothing more than rubble. The devil, when he takes possession of a person's body, can do as much damage as a fire, if not more. Now that the devil has been expelled, rebuilding the house, however, is a difficult task, and even whether or not this damage can eventually be restored depends only on God's will."

　　"Amen!" Carlo, and Letizia, and those younger siblings of Joseph then all said this together.

　　Carlo then donated thirty francs to the diocese, (no small sum in those days) and asked Bishop Minerva to bring Joseph to the church for a period of recovery. After all, the damage done by the devil should be able to recover more quickly in the holy church.

　　Obviously, this was quite a wise decision on Carlo's part. Joseph recovered quite quickly in the church, and in less than three months, under the bishop's tutelage, he had re-learned how to speak and write Italian, and had even learned to use Latin.

　　Bishop Mignonier always liked to take Joseph with him and tell everyone about him: "How marvelous is the will of God, you see, the devil once invaded this man's body. When I expelled the devil from his body in God's name, I saw only a wilderness burned with fire. But God's light shone on his body, and it caused a sapling to grow back in this wilderness, and it also caused this sapling to grow rapidly, and in a flash, it was going to grow from a sapling into a real tree. Praise be to the almighty and all-good God." In his opinion, Joseph's recovery was not only a manifestation of God's grace, but in a sense, it was also a manifestation of his piety.

　　"Amen." And so it was with those who heard it, while at the same time they reached out and drew a cross on their chests.

　　After being assured that Joseph had fully recovered, Bishop Mignonette asked Char to take Joseph back to his home. Everyone realized that the kind Joseph they were familiar with was back. Only compared to before, he was much quieter and was hooked on reading. He even began to teach himself French.

　　Letizia, the mother, was delighted with this change in her son. She decided that it was only by God's grace that her son was okay and had become so good. For this reason she donated another Mass to show her gratitude to God. And because of this, nowadays if anyone comes to her and says something bad about Joseph, she doesn't listen to them at all. For how could this son of hers, who had been blessed with God's grace, do evil?

　　Therefore, Napoleon's evil tactics would no longer work with Joseph. If Napoleon had tried to put anything bad on Joseph, Letizia would have stretched out her hand, twisted his ear, and sent him to the icon of the Blessed Virgin to confess his error in slandering his brother.

　　Clever little Napoleon quickly realized this, and so he had no choice but to make a compromise and show his respect to big brother Joseph.

　　Of course, the change in Napoleon Jr.'s attitude toward his elder brother Joseph was not just because his elder brother now had his mother's unconditional trust. It was also because big brother was now very different from before. In the old days, big brother, despite his generous character, was stupid. Yes very stupid. Stupid like a dumb goose.

　　But nowadays, big brother has completely changed, a little bit of one's own small mind, often only just emerged, big brother can see through at a glance. Just although he saw through, but does not reveal, just never step on the small Napoleon dug the trap. In addition, the big brother became erudite, he read a lot of books, know a lot of things. There were many things that Napoleon did not understand that he could ask his brother questions about, and most of those tricky and odd questions that he had, his brother was able to give convincing answers to.

　　Of course, the brother also has a lot of people do not like the change, one of the most people do not like is, that is, Joseph in the answer to Napoleon's questions, always like to reach out and rub his hair, and will also come up with such a sentence: "My stupid brother ah, this question, it is so.... ..."

　　Today Napoleon was in trouble again, he beat up the neighbor's child Paul. He hit him so hard that he knocked him out. (One of the lessons Napoleon himself learned about fighting is that if you do it, don't shrink from it, you must dare to do it.)

　　Paul's father, Mr. Giovanni, was a friend of Carlo's, and he only had one son like that. So as soon as he saw that Paul had fainted, Napoleon immediately realized that his old man might beat himself up badly for it, so he ran away before anyone could react.