 Napoleon's maternal grandmother had married into the Swiss Fesch family in her second marriage, and Napoleon's uncle, the cardinal Joseph Fesch, would fulfill a role as protector of the Bonaparte family for some years.Napoleon's noble, moderately affluent background afforded him greater opportunities to study than were available to a typical Corsican of the time.When he turned 9 years old, he moved to the French mainland and enrolled at a religious school in Autun in January 1779.