uet 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 punish