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(Translator: Alfred Allinson)

TO ARMAND GENEST

Quand, simple citoyen, soldat d’un peuple libre,
Aux bords de l’Éridan, de l’Adige et du Tibre,
Foudroyant tour à tour quelques tyrans pervers,
Des nations en pleurs, sa main brisait les fers….

(Marie-Joseph Chénier, La Promenade.)[1]

Napoléon, après son expédition de Livourne, se rendant à
Florence, coùcha à San Miniato chez un vieil abbé Buonaparte….

(Mémorial de Saint-Hélène, par le comte de Las Cases, réimpression
de 1823, 1824, t. I’er, p. 149.)[2]

“Je fus sur le soir à San Miniato. J’y avais un vieux
chanoine de parent….”

(Mémoires du docteur F. Antommarchi, sur les derniers moments de
Napoléon 1825, t. I’er p. 155.)[3]

[Footnote 1: “When, a plain citizen, soldier of a free people, by the banks of the Eridanus, the Adige and the Tiber, blasting with his lightnings one after another recalcitrant tyrants, his hand brake the fetters of the nations that wept….”]

[Footnote 2: “Napoleon, visiting Florence after his Leghorn expedition, lay one night at San Miniato at the house of an old Abbé Buonaparte….” (Memorial of St. Helena, by the Count de Las Cases–reprint of 1823, 1824, Vol. I, p. 149.)]

[Footnote 3: “I stayed for the night at San Miniato. I had a relative living there, an old Canon….” (Memoirs of Dr. F. Antommarchi on the Last Moments of Napoleon, 1825, vol. I, p. 155.)]

After occupying Leghorn and closing that port against the English men-of-war, General Bonaparte proceeded to Florence to visit the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand, who alone of all the princes of Europe had honestly and honourably fulfilled his engagements with the French Republic. In token of esteem and confidence, he went there without escort, accompanied only by the officers of his Staff. Amongst other sights he was shown the arms of the Buonapartes carved over the gateway of an old house. He was already aware that a branch of his family had been fruitful and multiplied at Florence in days of yore, and that a last descendant of this the ancient race was still alive. This was a certain Canon of San Miniato, now eighty years of age. In spite of all the pressing affairs he had to attend to, he made a point of paying him a visit. Napoleon Bonaparte was always strongly moved by feelings of natural affection.

On the eve of his departure from Florence, he made his way with some of his officers to the hill of San Miniato, which crowned with its walls and towers, rises from the plain at half a league’s distance from the city.

Old Canon Buonaparte welcomed with agreeable and dignified politeness his young kinsman and the French officers who accompanied him–Berthier, Junot, Orderly Officer in Chief Chauvet and Lieutenant Thézard. He regaled them with a supper à l’italienne, which lacked neither the cranes of Peretola nor the little sucking-pig scented with aromatic herbs, nor the best vintages of Tuscany, Naples and Sicily. Uncompromising Republicans as Brutus himself, they drank to France and Freedom. Their host acknowledged the toast; then turning to the General whom he had seated on his right hand;

“Nephew!” said he, “are you not curious to examine the genealogical tree painted on the wall yonder? You will be gratified to see from it that we are descended from the Lombard Cadolingians, who from the tenth to the twelfth centuries covered themselves with glory by their fidelity to the German Emperors, and from whom sprung, prior to the year 1100, the Buonapartes of Treviso and the Buonapartes of Florence, the latter stock proving by far the more illustrious.”

At this the officers began to whisper together and laugh. Orderly Officer Chauvet asked Berthier behind his hand if the Republican General felt flattered to possess amongst his ancestors a lot of slaves serving the Two-headed Eagle, while Lieutenant Thézard was ready to take his oath the General owed his birth to good sans-culottes and nobody else. Meanwhile the Canon went on with a long string of boasts concerning the nobility of his house and lineage.