There Is Nothing Surprising In Bonaparte's Cordial Approval Of The
Enterprise.
One has only to study the volumes in which M. Frederic Masson
has collected the papers and memoranda relating to Napoleon's youth and
early manhood to realise how intensely keen was his interest in geography
and travel.
In one of those interesting works is a document occupying
eight printed pages, in which Napoleon had summarised a geographical
textbook, with a view to the more perfect mastery of its contents.* (*
See Masson's Napoleon Inconnu; Papiers Inedits; Paris 1895 volume 2 page
44. The text-book was that of Lacroix.) It is curious to note how little
the young scholar was able to ascertain about Australasia from the volume
from which he learnt the elements of that science for which, with his
genius for strategy and tactics, he must have had an instinctive taste.
"La Nouvelle Guinee, la Carpentarie, la Nouvelle Hollande," etc., figure
in his notes as the countries forming the principal part of the southern
hemisphere now grouped under the denomination of Australasia; "la
Carpentarie" thus signalised as a separated land being simply the
northern region of Australia proper, the farthest limit of which is Cape
York.* (* Mallet's Description de l'Univers (Frankfort 1686) mentions
"Carpenterie" as being near the "Terre des Papous," and as discovered by
the Dutch captain, Carpenter.)
It is not a little interesting, that when, in April 1800, twenty
sculptors were commissioned to execute as many busts of great men to
adorn the Galerie des Consuls, the only Englishmen among the honoured
score were Marlborough and Dampier.* (* Aulard, Paris sous le Consulat 1
267.) It is curious to find the adventurous ex-buccaneer in such noble
company as that of Cicero, Cato, Caesar, Demosthenes, Frederick the
Great, and George Washington, but the fact that he was among the selected
heroes may be taken as another evidence of Bonaparte's interest in the
men who helped to find out what the world was like.
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