He had too early seen men and things behind the
scenes. His father, in consequence of his swindling transactions, made a
bankruptcy, which reduced the son to poverty and filled him with grief
and shame.
He was now twenty years old; he had courage and hope, and he already
wrote verses on all sorts of subjects,--serious, religious, epic, and
tragic. One day, when he was in especial distress, he made up a little
packet of his best verses and sent them to Lucien Bonaparte, with a
letter, in which he set forth his unhappy situation. Lucien loved
literature, and piqued himself on being author and poet. He was pleased
with the attempts of the young man, and made him a present of the salary
of a thousand or twelve hundred francs to which he was entitled as
member of the Institute. It was Beranger's first step out of the poverty
in which he had been plunged for several years, and he was indebted for
the benefit to a Bonaparte, and to the most republican Bonaparte of the
family. He was always especially grateful for it to Lucien, and somewhat
to the Bonapartes in general.
Receiving a small appointment in the bureau of the University through
the intervention of the Academician Arnault, a friend of Lucien
Bonaparte, Beranger lived gayly during the last six years of the Empire.
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