302 



ANECDOTES OF NAPOLEOX. 



liberty the same day by this answer to the Superior who interrogated 

 him, "Is a son, outraged in the person of a beloved mother, master 

 of a first emotion ? " Buonaparte liad been five weeks at the school 

 of Brienne when I arrived there. Scarcely had eight days elapsed, 

 before I was desirous to know him more intimately than my other 

 comrades. Though yet so young, he was ruled by the genius of 

 war and destruction. In a retired corner of the court he had built a 

 small fortress, of which the works had some originality without de- 

 viating too far from the manner of the celebrated Vauban. This 

 little model seemed to me to denote intelligence, and I complimented 

 him upon it. 



Eulogium, merited or not, was at all times the way to his heart. 

 After this epoch, I became attached to him, as much as it is possible 

 to be attached to one who insists on being always in the right. With 

 me only he showed himself less silent and reserved, and suffered 

 less of the constraint which he had imposed upon himself, to procure 

 himself the reputation of a superior being. It was proved to me that 

 his love of solitude and taciturnity was not at all his natural character 

 at that time. 



Had I doubted that his keeping aloof from the other pupils ori- 

 gmated in the enjoyments of which they partook, and of which he 

 was deprived, I should have been convinced by the following event. 

 Among a number of papers common to us both, I one day found the 

 copy of a letter which he had written to his father, and which I 

 here present exactly such as it fell into my hands. 



" D-omthe Militai-y School of Brienne, April 5, 1781. 



" My Father, if you or my protectors do not give me the means 

 of sustaining myself more honourably in the establishment where I 

 am, recall me home, and immediately. I am weary of publishing 

 my indigence, and of seeing it smiled at by insolent students whose 

 wealth alone makes them my superiors ; for there is not one of them 

 that is not immeasurably beneath the noble sentiments which ani- 

 mate me. What, Sir ! shall your son be continually the jest of cer- 

 tain noble coxcombs, who, proud of the pleasures they allow them- 

 selves, insultingly smile at the privations I undergo ? No, my 

 father, no ; if fortune absolutely refuses herself to the amelioration 

 of my fate, snatch me from Brienne ; give me, if it must be so, a 

 mechanical occupation ; let me but see my equals around me ; I 

 shall soon make myself their superior. By these offers judge of my 

 despair. But, I repeat it to you, I prefer being the first artisan of 

 a manufactory to being the despised artist of an academy. 



" This letter, I entreat you to believe, is not dictated by the vain 

 desire of giving myself up to expensive amusements; I am no way 

 charmed with them. I only feel the want of showing that I, as well 

 as the companions of my studies, have the means of procuring them. 



" Buonaparte." 



This letter at so early an 'age, paints him better than any thing 

 that could be said of him. But on no account would I have had him 

 know me to be in the secret of his jealousy ; for I was acquainted 

 with his feelings on the subject,'and he was one to do me an ill office. 



