Editing Charles Albert of Sardinia (section)

===Napoleonic period===
Charles Albert's father, Charles Emmanuel of Carignano, had studied in France and had been an officer in the French army. Sympathetic to liberalism, he travelled to Turin in 1796, in the wake of the [[Napoleon Italian campaign|French invasion]] of 1796 and King Charles Emmanuel IV's flight into exile. There Charles Emmanuel of Carignano and his wife joined the French cause. Despite this, the pair were sent to Paris, where they were placed under surveillance and forced to live in poor conditions in a house in the suburbs. These were the circumstances in which their children, Charles Albert and his sister [[Princess Elisabeth of Savoy|Maria Elisabeth]] (born 13 April 1800), grew up.<ref>{{harvnb|Bertoldi|pp=26–27}}</ref>

On 16 August 1800, Charles Emmanuel of Carignano died suddenly. It was up to Charles Albert's mother to deal with the French, who had no intention of recognizing her rights, titles or property. She nonetheless refused to send her son to the Savoy family in Sardinia for a conservative education. In 1808, Maria Christina married for a second time, to Giuseppe Massimiliano Thibaut di Montléart, whose relationship with Charles Albert was poor.

When he was twelve years old, Charles Albert and his mother were finally granted an audience with Napoleon, who granted the boy the title of count and an annual pension. Since it was no longer appropriate for him to be educated at home, Charles Albert was sent to the [[Collège Stanislas de Paris|Collège Stanislas]] in Paris in 1812. He remained at the school for two years, but did not attend regularly; instead, he attended only to sit exams, apparently with success. In the meantime, Albertina had moved to [[Geneva]], where Charles Albert joined her from March 1812 to December 1813, and she was married to the Protestant Pastor, Jean-Pierre Etienne Vaucher (1763–1841), a follower of [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]].<ref>In this period, Charles Albert grew a great deal. As an adult, he was 2.03 m tall.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Bertoldi|pp=28, 31–32}}</ref>

After Napoleon's defeat at the [[Battle of Leipzig]] in October 1813, the family left Geneva, fearing the arrival of Austrian forces and returned to France. At the beginning of 1814, Charles Albert enrolled in the military school in [[Bourges]], hoping to become an officer in the French army. He was sixteen years old.<ref>{{harvnb|Bertoldi|p=33}}</ref> Napoleon named him a [[lieutenant]] of [[dragoons]] in 1814.