himself
said in later years: "I was self-willed and obstinate, nothing awed me,
nothing disconcerted me. I was quarrelsome, exasperating; I feared no
one. I gave a blow here and a scratch there. Every one was afraid of
me. My brother Joseph was the one with whom I had the most to do. He
was beaten, bitten, scolded. I complained that he did not get over it
soon enough."

His mother alone was able to manage him, but she had other things to do
as well; so it is not strange that he escaped from the leash. He
relates one amusing incident where he was caught red-handed.

In the garden behind their house was a clump of fig trees, which
Napoleon was fond of climbing. His mother forbade him to do so, both
for fear of damage to himself and to the fruit, but the self-willed boy
persisted. "One day when I was idle, and at a loss for something to
do," he relates, "I took it in my head to long for some of those figs.
They were ripe; no one saw me, or could know anything of the matter. I
made my escape, ran to the tree, and gathered the whole. My appetite
being satisfied, I was providing for the future by filling my pockets,
when an unlucky gardener came in sight. I was half-dead with fear, and
remained fixed on the branch of the tree, where he had surprised me.
He wished to seize me and take me to my mother. Despair made me
eloquent; I represented my distress, promised to keep away from the
figs in future, and he seemed satisfied. I congratulated myself on
having come off so well, and fancied that the adventure would never be
known; but the traitor told all. The next day my mother wanted to go
and gather some figs. I had not left any, there was none to be found.
The gardener came, great reproaches followed, and an exposure." The
upshot of it was a sound thrashing!

But despite all the trials that the boy gave his mother, there always
existed between them a strong affection. Napoleon never spoke of her
in after years, except in words of praise. "It is to my mother, to her
good precepts and upright example, that I owe my success and any great
thing I have accomplished." And again: "My mother was a superb woman,
a woman of ability and courage."

The boy's first regular schooling was obtained at a small village
school kept by nuns. We have a picture of him there as a small thin
boy with a shock of unruly hair, a face not always clean, and
"stockings half off." But how many other boys have been guilty of such
co