'Oh dear no, certainly not.'
'Then he is in America?'
'Why should he be in America?'
'Where is he, then?'
'That I cannot tell you.'
'I heard someone say that he was in great misery.'
'Well, you must have known that that was not likely to be true.'
'No, I thought it couldn't be,' answered the boy, with a smile of relief.
All his teachers found that he was quick at his lessons, when he chose to take the trouble to learn them, which was not always, and, like many other little boys, he would listen for hours to what was read to him, though at first he was not fond of reading to himself. However, when he was about six he suddenly changed in this respect, and was often found poring over the Old Testament, delighting in the descriptions of the wars with the Amalekites or the exploits of Samson. As for his amusements, sometimes he acted in theatricals at the Court, and in spite of his age was present at the State balls, where everyone was struck with his grace, for, unlike his father, he always loved to dance. His tutors were quite kind to him, and did their best to bring him up in a way that was suitable to the grandson of the Emperor of Austria, but by trying to make him forget the country of his birth they went the wrong way to work. His recollections and feelings refused to be stifled; he was alone, and knew he had no place in the world; he had not a title, for the Congress of Vienna had deprived him of the succession to his mother's three duchies, and now even his name was taken from him. He was no longer 'Napoleon,' but 'Prince Francis Charles.' As his custom was, he kept silence about it, but this hurt him more than all the rest. After a time, however, Francis II., who was really fond of him, saw that it was not for his own dignity to leave his grandson in this position, and created him Duke of Reichstadt, with coat-of-arms, and lands, and a palace at Vienna.
Early in the year 1821, when he was ten years old, the Duke of Reichstadt began his studies in a public school, which were to end in a commission in the Austrian army. In spite of all his teaching he does not seem to have had a much greater talent for languages than his father, whose dislike of Latin he shared cordially. Great pains had been taken at first to force him to forget French, and to make him speak only the tongues used in the Austrian Empire, which were German and Italian, but as he grew older his lessons in French were begun again. After eleven years of study he was unable to write an Italian letter without mistakes, while his French compositions show that he thought in German, and then translated his ideas, so that it did not seem like real French at all. Like Napoleon, again, he was fond of mathematics and loved history, but best of all his drill. However idle he might be in other things, he worked hard at this, and how proud he was when he earned his promotion as a sergeant, and was allowed to mount guard before the room of his grandfather.