Then, as everyone knows, it was in Ajaccio [ Aiacciu ] , then a small fishing port of around 4, inhabitants ten times less than in Bastia , that the future Emperor was born on August 15, , in the family home [ His nanny was Mrs.
Napoleon was baptized on July 21, at the same time as his sister Maria-Anna, born on July 14 and who only would live a few months, by their great-uncle, Archdeacon Lucien Lucianu , in the Santa Maria Assunta Cathedral of the city ; he is carried to the baptismal font by his godfather, the prosecutor Laurent Lurenzu Giubega , and his godmother, his aunt Gertruda Paravicini.
Napoleon spent his first nine years in his hometown. His parents placed him in in a mixed school run by sisters who occupied the former Jesuit establishment, then, in the fall of , at the city college, in a class of Father Jean-Baptiste Ghjuvanbattista Recco. His uncle Joseph Fesch ,six years older than him, taught him to read, while his great-uncle Lucien taught him catechism. He also acquired some notions of literary Italian. From this time, he appeared more destined for a military career than his brother Joseph Ghjaseppu ; with a lively and combative temperament which earned him the nickname " Ribulione ", the Disruptor he liked to wander by the sea, with his foster brother, Ignazio Gnaziu , his nanny's son, and to take part in the quarrels between the children of the old town and those of the suburbs.
The child also liked to go up to the place called "Casone" [the current Place d'Austerlitz] where, sheltered under large rocks [the "Napoleon's cave"] , fascinated by the illustrious figures of the past, he dreamed of conquests and glory. Likewise, according to legend, he liked to come regularly to the Milelli house with his uncle Lucianu to talk about famous men in the history and future of the Bonaparte family.
At this time, the Milelli were not yet the property of the Bonapartes they would not be until but Charles, a keen litigator, had obtained the long lease, not so much for the house , although vast, as for the approximately eleven hectares of the olive grove surrounding it, making it the second largest on the island at the time.
