while the tearful group on the dock and the tearful group on the deck
threw kisses to one another until they could no longer make out faces or
forms.

The home tie was broken; and Napoleon Bonaparte, a boy of nine and a
half years, was launched upon life--a life the world was never to
forget.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

AT THE PREPARATORY SCHOOL.

The Bonaparte boys and their father stopped a while in Florence, so that
Charles Bonaparte could procure the proper papers to prove that he was
of what is called noble birth. For it seems that only the children of
nobles could enter the French military school at Brienne.

He procured these at last, and also a letter of introduction to the
French queen, Marie Antoinette whose sad story you all know so well.

Then they set out for Autun, and reached that quaint old town on the
last day of the year 1778. On New Year's Day, 1779, Napoleon was entered
as a pupil in the preparatory school at Autun.

Autun has been a school town tor hundreds of years. The old Druids had a
school there, and so did the Romans. It is one of the oldest of French
towns; and you will find it on your map of France, about one hundred and
fifty miles south-east of Paris. It is a picturesque old town, placed
on a sloping hillside, that runs down to the Arroux River. There is
a cathedral in the town over nine hundred years old; and there, too,
Napoleon found a college and a seminary, a museum and a library, with
plenty of ruins, walls, and gateways, and such things, that told of its
great age and old-time grandeur.

It was a fine place in which to go to school, and the Bonaparte boys
must have found it quite a change from their Corsican home. The bishop
of Autun, who had charge of the cathedral and the schools, was the
nephew of a friend of Charles Bonaparte, and he promised to look after
the boys.

Napoleon did not stay long in the school at Autun. His father went to
Paris to enter upon his duties as delegate to the Assembly, intending,
while there, to make arrangements for getting Napoleon into the military
school at Brienne.

But there was much need of the preparatory work at Autun. For you must
know that, being a Corsican, Napoleon knew scarcely a word of French.
The Corsicans speak Italian, and this would never do for a French
schoolboy. So, for three months, Napoleon was drilled in French.

He did not take kindly to it. But he did his best. For, you see, his
journey from Florence to Marseilles,