It is related that Napoleon was greatly enraged one day to find that the other side had tried to get the best of his men by putting a round stone into each snowball, but when someone advised him to imitate the tactics of the foe he indignantly refused, saying that he would win without doing so or be beaten.
The fort of the enemy was at last captured after Napoleon had gone through the formalities of a siege, in which he displayed much of the quickness of combination for which he was noted on the battlefield in after years. His soldierly methods electrified his fellow students and astonished the professors as well. "This little sham war," says Bourrienne, "was carried on for the space of a fortnight, and did not cease until a quantity of gravel and small stones having got mixed with the snow of which we made our bullets, many of the combatants, besiegers as well as besieged, were seriously wounded. I well remember that I was one of the worst sufferers from this sort of grape-shot fire."
In 1783 Bonaparte, on the recommendation of the inspector of the twelve military schools, was sent from Brienne to the Royal Military School at Paris to have his education completed in the general school,—an extraordinary compliment to the genius and proficiency of a boy of fifteen. He was one of three to receive that honor, a tribute paid to the precocity of his extraordinary mathematical talent, and the steadiness of his application. The entry made at that time in the military records says:
"Monsieur de Bonaparte (Napoleon) born August 15th, 1769; in height four feet, ten inches, ten lines; of good constitution, health excellent, character mild, honest and grateful; conduct exemplary; has distinguished himself by application to mathematics; understands history and geography tolerably well; is indifferently skilled in merely ornamental studies, as well as in Latin; would make an excellent sailor; deserves to be passed to the Military School at Paris."
The young student did not arrive in Paris in the guise of the future conqueror of the world. On the contrary, he looked like a "new-comer;" he gaped at everything he saw, and gazed about in a dazed sort of way. As a Corsican compatriot who met him as he was getting out of the coach has said: "His appearance was that of a youth whom any scoundrel would try to rob after seeing him, if indeed he had anything worth taking!" However, it should not be forgotten that he was but a youth of fifteen, felt his poverty keenly, and was about to enter into the noise and extravagant life of the rich students of this royal military school. As he himself said in 1811: "All these cares spoiled my early years; they influenced my temper and made me grave before my time."
At the Paris school Napoleon labored hard, as he had done at Brienne for five years, being especially proficient, as before, in mathematics. Everything was very luxurious here, and Bonaparte complained in a memorial, which he presented to the superintendent of the establishment, that the mode of life was too expensive and delicate for "poor gentlemen" and could not properly prepare them either for returning to their "modest homes," or for the hardships they would encounter in war. He proposed that instead of a regular dinner of two courses daily, the students should have ammunition bread and soldiers' rations, and be compelled to mend and clean their own stockings and shoes. "If I were king of France," he said one day to a companion, "I would change this state of things very quickly!" This memorial is said to have done him no service, for every third boy that looked on him was a duke from his cradle, while the Young Corsican was still a "pensioner of the king;" but the schools established by him after he became Emperor were on that severe plan. "Although believing in the necessity of show and magnificence in public life," says Meneval, his second private secretary, "Napoleon remained true to these principles, while lavishing wealth on his ministers and marshals: 'In your private life' said he, 'be economical and even parsimonious; in public be magnificent.'"
On being reproved one day by an uncle of the Duchess d'Abrantes for ingratitude as a "pensioner of the king," he broke out furiously with an expression of indignation. "Silence!" said the gentleman at whose table he was sitting; "It ill becomes you, who are educated by the king's bounty, to speak as you do."
"I am not educated at the king's expense," replied Bonaparte, his face flushed with rage, "but at the expense of the nation!"
Young Napoleon made but poor advancement in the German language while at this school, and by reason of it offended M. Bauer his tutor. One day, not being in his place, M. Bauer inquired where he was, and was told that he was attending his examination in the class of artillery.
"Oh! so he does learn something," said the professor ironically.