you, Lawley!" and the boy in great secrecy pulled a paper from his
pocket; "see now what I have written."
The English boy took the paper, ran his eye over it, and laughed as
loudly as he dared while on duty.
"My eye!" he said, "it's in English, and pretty fair English too. A
letter to the British Admiralty? Permission to enter the British navy as
a midshipman, eh? Well, you Bonaparte, you are a cool one. A Frenchman
in the British navy! Fancy now!"
"No, sir; a Corsican," replied Napoleon. "Why should it not be so? What
have I received but scorn and insult from these Frenchmen? You English
are more fair, and England is the friend of Corsica. Why should I not
become a midshipman in your navy? The only difficulty, I am afraid, will
be my religion."
"Your religion!" cried Lawley, with a laugh; "why, you young rascal! I
don't believe you have any religion at all."
"But my family have," Napoleon protested. "My mother's race, the
Ramolini" (and the boy rolled out the name as if that respectable farmer
family were dukes or emperors at least), "are very strict. I should
be disinherited if I showed any signs of becoming a heretic like you
English; and if I joined the British navy, would I not be compelled to
become a heretic, like you, Lawley?"
Lawley burst into such a loud laugh over the boy's religious scruples,
of which he had never before seen evidence, that he aroused one of the
teachers with his noise, and had to scud away, for fear of being caught,
and punished for neglect of duty.
But he kept Napoleon's letter of application. He must have sent it,
either in fun, or with some desire to befriend this badgered Corsican
boy; for to-day Napoleon's letter still exists in the crowded English
department, wherein are filed the archives of the British Admiralty.
At last, by the interest of certain of the friends whom the boy's
misfortune, if not his pluck, had made for him--such lads as Lawley, the
English boy, Bourrienne, Lauriston, and Father Patrault, the teacher of
mathematics,--Napoleon was liberated with a reprimand; while the boy who
had caused all the trouble went unpunished, save for the headache that
Napoleon's well-aimed stone had given him and the scar the blow had
left.
But the boy could not long stay out of trouble. The next time it came
about, friendship, and not vindictiveness, was the cause.
Napoleon did not forget the good offices of his friends. Indeed,
Napoleon never forgot a benefit. His final fall from his great power
came, largely, because of the very men whom he had honored and enriched,
out of friendship or appreciation for services performed in his behalf.
One day young Lauriston, who was on duty as a sort of sentry in the
chestnut avenue that was one of Napoleon's favorite walks, left his
post, and joining Napoleon, begged him to help him in a problem in
mathematics which he had been too lazy or too stupid to solve.
"We will go to your garden, Straw-nose," said Lauriston; for both friend
and foe, after the manner of boys, used the nicknames that had by common
consent been fastened upon their schoolfellows.
"We will not, then," Napoleon returned. For, as you know, his garden was
sacred, and not even his friends were allowed entrance. "See, we will
go beyond, to the seat under the big chestnut. But are you not on duty
here?"
Lauriston snapped his fingers and shrugged his shoulders in contempt of
duty. "That for duty!" he exclaimed. "My duty now is to get out this pig
of a problem."
Under the big chestnut, which was another of Napoleon's favorite
resorts, the two boys put their heads together over Lauriston's problem,
and it was soon made clear to the lad; for Napoleon was always good at
mathematics.
But the time spent over the problem exhausted Lauriston's limit of
duty; and when the teacher came to relieve him at his post, the boy was
nowhere to be seen.
Now, at Brienne, military instruction was on military rules; and no
crime against military discipline is much greater than "absence without
leave."
So when, at last, young Lauriston was found in Napoleon's company, away
from his post of duty, and beneath the big chestnut-tree, the boy was in
a "pretty mess." But Napoleon never deserted his friends.
"Sir," he said to the teacher, "the fault is mine. I led young Lauriston
away to"--he stopped: it would scarcely help his friend's cause to say
that he had been helping him at his lessons; thus he continued, "to show
him my lists"--which was not an untruth, for he had shown the copy to
Lauriston.
"Your lists, unruly one," said the teacher--one of Napoleon's chief
persecutors. "And what lists, pray?"
"My lists of the possessions of England, here in my copy-book," said
Napoleon, drawing the badly scrawled blank-book from his pocket.
He handed it to the teacher.
"Ah, what handwriting! It is vilely done, young Bonaparte. Even I can
scarcely read it," he said. "What is this? You would draw my portrait in
your copy-book? Wretched one! have you no manners? So! Possessions of
the English, is it? Would that the English possessed you! None then
would be happier than I." Thereupon the teacher read through the list,
making sarcastic comments on each entry, until he came to the end.
"'Cabo Corso in Guinea, a pretty strong fort on the sea side of Fort
Royal, a defence of sixteen cannons.' Bad spelling, worse writing, this!
and the last, 'Saint Helena, a little island;' and where might it be,
that Saint Helena, young Bonaparte?"
"In the South Atlantic, well off the African coast," replied Napoleon.
"Would you were there too, young malcontent!" said the teacher, "luring
boys from their duty. This is worse than treason. See! you shall to the
lockup once more. And you are no longer battalion captain."
Young Lauriston would have protested against this injustice, and
declared that he was at fault; but, like too many boys under similar
circumstances, he was afraid, and accepted anything that should save him
from punishment. Moreover, a glance at Napoleon's masterful eyes held
his tongue mute, and he saw his friend borne away to the punishment that
should have been his.
"'Tis Saint Helena's fault, and not yours, my Lauriston," Napoleon
whispered in his ear. "Bad writing is never forgiven."
So, as if in a prophecy of the future, Napoleon suffered unjust disgrace
in connection with Saint Helena's name; and to-day, in the splendid
exhibition-room of the historical library at Florence, jealously guarded
beneath a glass case, is Napoleon's blue paper copybook, the very last
line of which reads, by the strangest of all strange coincidences,
"Saint Helena, a little island."
The boy's willingness to suffer for his friends, and, even more than
this, the unjust taking away of his office in the school battalion, of
which he was quite proud, turned the tide in young Napoleon's favor, so
far as his schoolmates were concerned.
"Little Straw-nose is a plucky one, is he not, though?" the boys
declared; and when he came on the field again, they welcomed him with
cheers, and made him leader for the day in their sports.
They had great fun. Napoleon, full of his readings in Plutarch's
"Lives," divided the boys into two camps; one camp was to be the
Persians, the other the Greeks and Macedonians. Napoleon, of course, was
Alexander; and, like the great Macedonian, he wrought such havoc on the
Persians, that the school hall in which the battle was waged was filled
with the uproar, and all the teachers at Brienne rushed pell-mell to the
place, to quell what they were certain must be a school riot, led on by
"that miserable Corsican."
Day by day, however, "that miserable Corsican" made more and more
friends among his schoolfellows. For boys grow tired at last of plaguing
one who has both spirit and pluck; and these Napoleon certainly
possessed. He had come to the school "a little savage," so the polished
French boys declared.
"I was in Brienne," he said years afterwards, as he thought over his
school-days, "the poorest of all my schoolfellows. They always had money
in their pockets; I, never. I was proud, and was most careful that
nobody should perceive this. I could neither laugh nor amuse myself like
the others. I was not one of them. I could not be popular."
[Illustration: _Napoleon at the School
of Brienne (From the Painting by M R Dumas_)]
So he had to go through the same hard training that other poor boys at
boarding-school have undergone. He, however was petulant, high-spirited,
proud, and had something of that Corsican love of retaliation that has
made that rocky island famous for its feuds and family rows, or
"vendettas" as they are called.
He showed the boys at last that they could not impose upon him; that
he had plenty of spirit; that he was kind-hearted to those who showed
themselves friendly; and, above all, that he was fitted to lead them in
their sports, and could, in fact, help them toward having a jolly good
time.
So, gradually, they began to side with and follow him. They left him in
undisturbed possession of his fortified garden, they asked his help over
hard points in mathematics, until at last he began even to grow a little
popular. And then, to crown all, came the great Snow-ball Fight.
CHAPTER TWELVE.
THE GREAT SNOW-BALL FIGHT AT BRIENNE SCHOOL.
That Snow-ball Fight is now famous. It was in the winter of 1783.
Snow fell heavily; drifts piled up in the schoolyard at Brienne. The
schoolboys marvelled and exclaimed; for such a snow-fall was rare in
France. Then they began to shiver and grumble. They shivered at the
cold, to which they were not accustomed; they grumbled at the snow
which, by covering their playground, kept them from their usual
out-of-door sports, and held them for a time prisoners within the dark
schoolrooms.
Suddenly Napoleon had an inspiration.
"What is snow for, my brothers," he exclaimed, "if not to be used? Let
us use it. What say you to a snow fort and a siege? Who will join me?"
It was a novel idea; and, with all the boyish love for something new and
exciting, the boys of Brienne entered into the plan at once. "The fort,
the fort, young Straw-nose!" they cried. "Show us what to do! Let us
build it at once!"
With Napoleon as director, they straightway set to work. The boy had an
excellent head for such things; and his mathematical knowledge, together
with the preparatory study in fortifications he had already pursued in
the school, did him good service.
He was not satisfied with simply piling up mounds of snow. He built
regular works on a scientific plan. The snow "packed well," and the
boys worked like beavers. With spades and brooms and hands and homemade
wooden shovels, they built under Napoleon's directions a snow fort that
set all Brienne wondering and admiring. There were intrenchments and
redoubts, bastions and ramparts, and all the parts and divisions and
defences that make up a real fort.
It took some days to build this wonderful fort. For the boys could only
work in their hours of recess. But at last, when all was ready, Napoleon
divided the schoolboys into two unequal portions. The smaller number
was to hold the fort as defenders; the larger number was to form the
besieging force. At the head of the besiegers was Napoleon. Who was
captain of the fort I do not know. His name has not come down to us.
But the story of the Snow-ball Fight has. For days the battle raged. At
every recess hour the forces gathered for the exciting sport. The rule
was that when once the fort was captured, the besiegers were to become
its possessors, and were, in turn, to defend it from its late occupants,
who were now the attacking army, increased to the required number by
certain of the less skilful fighters in the successful army.
Napoleon was in his element. He was an impetuous leader; but he was
skilful too; he never lost his head.
[Illustration: "_As leader of the storming-party
he would direct the attack_"]
Again and again, as leader of the storming-party, he would direct
the attack; and at just the right moment, in the face of a shower
of snow-balls, he would dash from his post of observation, head the
assaulting army, and scaling the walls with the fire of victory in his
eye and the shout of encouragement on his lips, would lead his soldiers
over the ramparts, and with a last dash drive the defeated
defenders out from the fortification.
The snow held for nearly ten days; the fight kept up as long as the snow
walls, often repaired and strengthened, would hold together.
The thaw, that relentless enemy of all snow sports, came to the
attack at last, and gradually dismantled the fortifications; snow for
ammunition grew thin and poor, and gravel became more and more a part of
the snow-ball manufacture.
Napoleon tried to prevent this, for he knew the danger from such
missiles. But often, in the heat of battle, his commands were
disregarded. One boy especially--the same Bouquet who had scaled his
hedge and brought him into trouble--was careless or vindictive in this
matter.
On the last day of the snow, Napoleon saw young Bouquet packing
snow-balls with dirt and gravel, and commanded him to stop. But Bouquet
only flung out a hot "I won't!" at the commander, and launched his
gravel snow-ball against the decaying fort.
Napoleon was just about to head the grand assault. "To the rear with
you! to the rear, Bouquet! You are disqualified!" he cried.
But Bouquet was insubordinate. He did not intend to be cheated out of
his fun by any orders that "Straw-nose" should give him. Instead of
obeying his commander, he sang out a contemptuous refusal, and dashed
ahead, as if to supplant his general in the post of leader of the
assault.
Napoleon had no patience with disobedience. The insubordination and
insolence of Bouquet angered him; and darting forward, he collared his
rebellious subordinate, and flung him backward down the slushy rampart.
"Imbecile!" he cried. "Learn to obey! Drag him to the rear, Lauriston."
The fort was carried. But "General Thaw" was too strong for the young
soldiers; and that night, a rain setting in, finished the destruction of
the now historic snow-fort of Brienne School.
Bouquet, smarting under what he considered the disgrace that had been
put upon him before his playmates, accosted Napoleon that night in the
hall. "Bah, then, smarty Straw-nose!" he cried; "you are a beast. How
dare you lay hands on me, a Frenchman?"
"Because you would not obey orders," Napoleon replied. "Was not I in
command?"
"You!" sneered Bouquet; "and who are you to command? A runaway Corsican,
a brigand, and the son of a brigand, like all Corsicans."
"My father is not a brigand," returned Napoleon. "He is a
gentleman--which you are not."
"I am no gentleman, say you?" cried the enraged French boy. "Why, young
Straw-nose, my ancestors were gentlemen under great King Louis when
yours were tending sheep on your Corsican hills. My father is an officer
of France; yours is"--
"Well, sir, and what is mine?" said Napoleon defiantly.
"Yours," Bouquet laughed with a mocking and cruel sneer, "yours is but a
lackey, a beggar in livery, a miserable tip-staff!"
Napoleon flung himself at the insulter of his father in a fury; but he
was caught back by those standing by, and saved from the disgrace of
again breaking the rules by fighting in the school-hall.
All night, however, he brooded over Bouquet's taunting words, and the
desire for revenge grew hot within him.
The boy had said his father was no gentleman. No gentleman, indeed!
Bouquet should see that he knew how gentlemen should act. He would not
fall upon him, and beat him as he deserved. He would conduct himself
as all gentlemen did. He would challenge to a duel the insulter of his
father.
This was the custom. The refuge of all gentlemen who felt themselves
insulted, disgraced, or persecuted in those days, was to seek vengeance
in a personal encounter with deadly weapons, called a duel. It is a
foolish and savage way of seeking redress; but even today it is resorted
to by those who feel themselves ill treated by their "equals." So
Napoleon felt that he was doing the only wise and gentlemanly thing
possible.
But, even then duelling was against the law. It was punished when men
were caught at it; for schoolboys, it was considered an unheard-of
crime.
[Illustration: _Napoleon sends his Challenge_.]
Still, though against the law, all men felt that it was the only way
to salve their wounded honor. Napoleon felt it would be the only manly
course open to him; so, early next morning, he despatched his friend
Bourrienne with a note to Bouquet. That note was a "cartel," or
challenge. It demanded that Mr. Bouquet should meet Mr. Bonaparte at
such time and place as their seconds might select, there to fight with
swords until the insult that Mr. Bouquet had put upon Mr. Bonaparte
should be wiped out in blood.
There was ferocity for you! But it was the fashion.
"Mr. Bouquet," however, had no desire to meet the fiery young Corsican
at swords' points. So, instead of meeting his adversary, he sneaked off
to one of the teachers, who, as we know, most disliked Napoleon, and
complained that the Corsican, Bonaparte, was seeking his life, and meant
to kill him.
At once Napoleon was summoned before the indignant instructor.
"So, sir!" cried the teacher, "is this the way you seek to become a
gentleman and officer of your king? You would murder a schoolmate; you
would force him to a duel! No denial, sir; no explanation. Is this so,
or not so?"
Once more Napoleon saw that words or remonstrances would be in vain.
"It is so," he replied. "Can we, then, never work out your Corsican
brutality?" said the teacher. "Go, sir! you are to be imprisoned until
fitting sentence for your crime can be considered."
And once again poor Napoleon went into the school lock-up, while
Bouquet, who was the most at fault, went free.
There was almost a rebellion in school over the imprisonment of the
successful general who had so bravely fought the battles of the
snow-fort.
Napoleon passed a day in the lock-up; then he was again summoned before
the teacher who had thus punished him.
"You are an incorrigible, young Bonaparte," said the teacher.
"Imprisonment can never cure you. Through it, too, you go free from your
studies and tasks. I have considered the proper punishment. It is this:
you are to put on to-day the penitent's woollen gown; you are to kneel
during dinner-time at the door of the dining-room, where all may see
your disgrace and take warning therefrom; you are to eat your dinner on
your knees. Thereafter, in presence of your schoolmates assembled in the
dining-room, you are to apologize to Mr. Bouquet, and ask pardon from
me, as representing the school, for thus breaking the laws and acting as
a bully and a murderer. Go, sir, to your room, and assume the penitent's
gown."
Napoleon, as I have told you, was a high-spirited boy, and keenly felt
disgrace. This sentence was as humiliating and mortifying as anything
that could be put upon him. Rebel at it as he might, he knew that he
would be forced to do it; and, distressed beyond measure at thought of
what he must go through, he sought his room, and flung himself on his
bed in an agony of tears. He actually had what in these days we call a
fit of hysterics.
While thus "broken up," his room door opened. Supposing that the
teacher, or one of the monitors, had come to prepare him for the
dreadful sentence, he refused to move.
Then a voice, that certainly was not the one he expected, called to him.
He raised a flushed and tearful face from the bed, and met the inquiring
eyes of his father's old friend, and the "protector" of the Bonaparte
family, General Marbeuf, formerly the French commander in Corsica.
"Why, Napoleon, boy! what does all this mean?" inquired the general.
"Have you been in mischief? What is the trouble?"
The visit came as a climax to a most exciting event. In it Napoleon saw
escape from the disgrace he so feared, and the injustice against which
he so rebelled. With a joyful shout he flung himself impulsively at his
friend's feet, clasped his knees, and begged for his protection. The
boy, you see, was still unnerved and over-wrought, and was not as cool
or self-possessed as usual.
Gradually, however, he calmed down, and told General Marbeuf the whole
story.
The general was indignant at the sentence. But he laughed heartily at
the idea of this fourteen-year-old boy challenging another to a duel.
"Why, what a fire-eater it is!" he cried. "But you had provocation,
boy. This Bouquet is a sneak, and your teacher is a tyrant. But we will
change it all; see, now! I will seek out the principal. I will explain
it all. He shall see it rightly, and you shall not be thus disgraced.
No, sir! not if I, General Marbeuf, intrench myself alone with you
behind what is left of your slushy snow-fort yonder, and fight all
Brienne school in your behalf--teachers and all. So cheer up, lad! we
will make it right."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
RECOMMENDED FOR PROMOTION.
General Marbeuf did make it all right. Bouquet was called to account;
the teacher who had so often made it unpleasant for Napoleon was sharply
reprimanded; and the principal, having his attention drawn to the
persistent persecution of this boy from Corsica, consented to his
release from imprisonment, while sternly lecturing him on the sin of
duelling.
The general also chimed in with the principal's lecture; although I am
afraid, being a soldier, he was more in sympathy with Napoleon than he
should have been.
"A bad business this duelling, my son," he said, "a bad business--though
I must say this rascal Bouquet deserved a good beating for his
insolence. But a beating is hardly the thing between gentlemen."
"And you have fought a duel, my General?" inquired Napoleon. "Have I?
why, scores" the bluff soldier admitted.
[Illustration: "_'And you have fought a duel, my General'? inquired
Napoleon_"]
"Let me see--I have fought one--two--four--why, when I was scarcely more
than your age, my friend, I"--and then the general suddenly stopped.
For he saw how his reminiscences would grow into admissions that would
scarcely be a correction.
So, with a hem and a haw, General Marbeuf wisely changed the subject,
and began to inquire into the reasons for Napoleon's unpleasant
experiences at Brienne. He speedily discovered that the cause lay in the
pocket. As you have already learned from Napoleon's letter to his father
and his own later reflections, the boy's poverty made him dissatisfied
with his lot, while his companions, heedless and blundering as boys are
apt to be in such matters, did not try to smooth over the difference
between their plenty and this boy's need, but rather increased his
bitterness by their thoughtless speech and action.
"Brains do not lie in the pocket, Napoleon, boy," he said. "You have as
much intelligence as any of your fellows, you should not be so touchy
because you do not happen to have their spending-money. You must learn
to be more charitable. Do not take offence so easily; remember that
all boys admire ability, and look kindly on good fellowship in a
comrade, whether he have much or little in his purse. Learn to be more
companionable; accept things as they come; and if you are ever hard
pushed for money,--call on me. I'll see you through."
Any boy will take a lecture with so agreeable an ending, and Napoleon
did not resent his good friend's advice.
The general also introduced the boy to the great lady who lived in the
big château near by--the Lady of Brienne. She interested herself in the
lad's doings, gave him many a "tip," invited him to her home, and, by
kindly words and motherly deeds, brought the boy out of his nervousness
and solitude into something more like good manners and gentlemanly ways.
So the school--life at Brienne went on more agreeably as the months
passed by. Napoleon studied hard. He made good progress in mathematics
and history, though he disliked the languages, and never wrote a good
hand. He was always an "old boy" for his years; and, in time, many of
his teachers became interested in him, and even grew fond of him.
But he always kept his family in mind. He was continually planning how
he might help his mother, and give his brothers and sisters a chance to
get an education.