John Gibson Lockhart

The History of Napoleon Buonaparte John Gibson Lockhart

Book Excerpt: ...s memorial is said to have done him no service at the military school. He had just completed his sixteenth year when (in August, 1785, ) after being examined by the great Laplace, he obtained his first commission as second lieutenant in the artillery regiment La Fere. His corps was at Valance when he joined it; and he mingled, more largely than might have been expected from his previous habits, in the cultivated society of the place. His personal advantages were considerable; the outline of the countenance classically beautiful; the eye deep-set and dazzlingly brilliant; the figure short, but slim, active, and perfectly knit. Courtly grace and refinement of manners he never attained, nor perhaps coveted; but he early learned the art, not difficult probably to any person possessed of such genius and such accomplishments, of rendering himself eminently agreeable wherever it suited his purpose or inclination to be so. On the 27th February in this year his father died of a cancer in the stomach, age.