The Corsican: A Diary of Napoleon's Life in His Own Words

Overview

"The Corsican: A Diary of Napoleon’s Life in His Own Words" (1910) presents Napoleon’s youth and rise to power from 1769 to 1799 as a continuous first-person chronicle assembled from his letters, proclamations, and memoranda. Shaped to read like a diary, it follows him from obscure beginnings to the threshold of the Consulate, emphasizing how he understood his motives, methods, and destiny. The voice is brisk, practical, and often self-justifying, revealing a mind that treats politics as war by other means and war as administration under fire.

Early Years and Corsican Identity

Napoleon’s childhood in Ajaccio and schooling at Brienne and the École Militaire establish his self-image: an outsider turned professional, trained in mathematics and artillery, hungry for merit-based advancement. He writes of Corsica with fierce loyalty, admiring Paoli before turning against him when ideals collide with opportunity and France’s pull. These pages show the tension between provincial identity and imperial ambition, and the shaping of a temperament that prizes economy of force, speed, and clear lines of authority.

Revolution and First Steps

As the Revolution breaks open careers, he seizes technical and political chances. The siege of Toulon becomes the proving ground: an artillery plan, relentless energy, sudden promotion, and the conviction that decision comes from concentration of fire and will. After Thermidor, suspicion and unemployment test him, but he reappears as a problem-solver. The 13 Vendémiaire crisis frames his legitimacy: restoring order with grapeshot, he casts himself as the Republic’s indispensable sword. The voice fuses public necessity with personal ascent, and a pamphleteer’s flair begins to color the reports.

Italy: War, Politics, and Glory

Given the Army of Italy and newly married to Joséphine, he recounts a campaign powered by movement and surprise. Montenotte, Lodi, Arcole, Rivoli, each is reduced to principles: see everything, move faster than thought, strike the enemy’s center of gravity, then exploit. He writes not only of battles but of governing occupied territory: creating sister republics, levying contributions, codifying administration, patronizing learned societies, and sending art to Paris as both tribute and propaganda. Diplomacy with Austria culminates in Campo Formio, which he describes as a negotiation won by force already exerted, pen and sword as one instrument. The aura of glory and the habit of bulletin-writing consolidate; setbacks are reframed as preludes to greater strokes.

Egypt and the Limits of Fortune

Choosing Egypt over a risky Channel crossing, he presents the expedition as a civilizing war: seizing Malta, proclaiming respect for Islam, founding the Institute of Egypt, surveying canals and antiquities. Victory at the Pyramids confirms his doctrine of morale and fire superiority, but Nelson’s destruction of the fleet at Aboukir Bay forces a new register. The Syrian campaign introduces attrition, plague, and Acre’s stubborn defenses; he notes the calculus of persistence versus waste, then recovers narrative momentum with the land victory at Aboukir. The tone remains confident, but the margin for improvisation narrows, and the reliance on crafted communiqués becomes more evident.

Brumaire and the Threshold of Power

Sensing the Directory’s exhaustion and France’s appetite for order, he returns, coordinating with political actors while keeping soldiers as the decisive argument. The days of 18, 19 Brumaire are told as a sequence of rapid moves, legal forms harnessed to military fact. He frames the Consulate as a restoration of authority, rational administration, and national energy, an extension of his Italian governance scaled to France. The book closes with the stage set: the man who called himself a Corsican and a republican now ready to remake the state.

Voice and Themes

Threaded through the chronology are recurring tenets: speed over mass, clarity over ornament, institutions as tools, religion as policy, law as the lasting face of victory. Fortune exists, but only for the prepared; legitimacy flows from results. By arranging his own words into a diary arc, the book captures the self-portrait Napoleon preferred: a technician of power moving from island provincial to master of contingencies, poised at the cusp of empire.