nts. The master
of their school arranged a mimic combat for his pupils--Romans against
Carthaginians. Joseph, as the elder was ranged under the banner of
Rome, while Napoleon was told off among the Carthaginians; but, piqued
at being chosen for the losing side, the child fretted, begged, and
stormed until the less bellicose Joseph agreed to change places with
his exacting junior. The incident is prophetic of much in the later
history of the family.

Its imperial future was opened up by the deft complaisance now shown
by Charles Buonaparte. The reward for his speedy submission to France
was soon forthcoming. The French commander in Corsica used his
influence to secure the admission of the young Napoleon to the
military school of Brienne in Champagne; and as the father was able to
satisfy the authorities not only that he was without fortune, but also
that his family had been noble for four generations, Napoleon was
admitted to this school to be educated at the charges of the King of
France (April, 1779). He was now, at the tender age of nine, a
stranger in a strange land, among a people whom he detested as the
oppressors of his countrymen. Worst of all, he had to endure the taunt
of belonging to a subject race. What a position for a proud and
exacting child! Little wonder that the official report represented him
as silent and obstinate; but, strange to say, it added the word
"imperious." It was a tough character which could defy repression
amidst such surroundings. As to his studies, little need be said. In
his French history he read of the glories of the distant past (when
"Germany was part of the French Empire"), the splendours of the reign
of Louis XIV., the disasters of France in the Seven Years' War, and
the "prodigious conquests of the English in India." But his
imagination was kindled from other sources. Boys of pronounced
character have always owed far more to their private reading than to
their set studies; and the young Buonaparte, while grudgingly learning
Latin and French grammar, was feeding his mind on Plutarch's
"Lives"--in a French translation. The artful intermingling of the
actual and the romantic, the historic and the personal, in those vivid
sketches of ancient worthies and heroes, has endeared them to many
minds. Rousseau derived unceasing profit from their perusal; and
Madame Roland found in them "the pasture of great souls." It was so
with the lonely Corsican youth. Holding aloof from his comrades