Charles Buonaparte, by the French governor's kindness, received a legal
appointment in Corsica--that of _Procureur du Roi_ (answering nearly to
Attorney-General); and scandal has often said that Marbœuff was his
wife's lover. The story received no credence in Ajaccio.

Concerning the infancy of Napoleon we know nothing, except that he ever
acknowledged with the warmest gratitude the obligations laid on him, at
the threshold of life by the sagacity and wisdom of Letitia. He always
avowed his belief that he owed his subsequent elevation principally to
her early lessons; and indeed laid it down as a maxim that "the future
good or bad conduct of a child depends entirely on the mother." Even of
his boyish days few anecdotes have been preserved in Corsica. His chosen
plaything, they say, was a small brass cannon; and, when at home in the
school-vacations, his favourite retreat was a solitary summer-house
among the rocks on the sea-shore, about a mile from Ajaccio, where his
mother's brother (afterwards Cardinal Fesch) had a villa. The place is
now in ruins, and overgrown with bushes, and the people call it
"Napoleon's Grotto." He has himself said that he was remarkable only for
obstinacy and curiosity: others add, that he was high-spirited,
quarrelsome, imperious; fond of solitude; slovenly in his dress. Being
detected stealing figs in an orchard, the proprietor threatened to tell
his mother, and the boy pleaded for himself with so much eloquence, that
the man suffered him to escape. His careless attire, and his partiality
for a pretty little girl in the neighbourhood, were ridiculed together
in a song which his playmates used to shout after him in the streets of
Ajaccio:

"Napoleone di mezza calzetta
Fa l'amore a Giacominetta."[3]