were clandestinely removed to Corsica, where the difference of language, or deliberate purpose, caused the name Bonpart to be rendered Bonaparte, or Buonaparte."
Whether it was proposed to Napoleon at one time to circulate this fable is uncertain, What is certain is, that, when he was emperor, he took pains to have the registers of Ajaccio falsified or destroyed, either in preparation for the publication of this fiction, or because they revealed some unpleasant truths, which he was interested in suppressing. The crucial difficulty in the way of formulating this fable was that Saint Mars, and not any M. Bonpart, had been governor of Ste. Marguerite whilst the Iron Mask was there.
The last celebrated prisoner at Ste. Marguerite was Marshal Bazaine, who escaped with the assistance of his wife, it can hardly be doubted with the connivance of the governor. Marshal François Achille Bazaine was born at Versailles in 1811, and was destined to be a tradesman by his very bourgeois parents. But as he did not relish the shop, he entered the army as a private soldier in 1831, and served in Algiers, where he sufficiently distinguished himself to be promoted to a lieutenancy, and then become captain of the Foreign Legion in the service of Queen Christina against the Carlists. In 1841 he again served in Algiers, became colonel, and next general of brigade. He was in the Crimean War, and returned from it as general of division. Later he attended the unfortunate Emperor Maximilian to Mexico, when he was raised to the rank of marshal. There he married a rich Creole. His conduct in Mexico was not glorious. He left the emperor in the most menaced position; but whether
