General Marbeuf, the warm friend of the family, encouraged Charles Bonaparte to make the attempt to have the children educated at the expense of France. In 1776 written application was made for the admission of Joseph and Napoleon into the military school of Brienne. At that time both the boys were on the safe side of the age-limit of ten years. But the authorities demanded proofs of nobility,—four generations thereof,—according to Bourbon law; and before these proofs could be put into satisfactory shape, Joseph was too old for Brienne.
Chosen in 1777 by the nobles of Corsica as their deputy to France, Charles Bonaparte set out for Versailles in 1778, taking with him his sons Joseph and Napoleon. Joseph Fesch accompanied the party as far as Aix, where he was to be given a free education for the priesthood by the seminary at that place. Joseph and Napoleon both stated in after years that their father visited Florence on the way to France, and was given an honorable reception at the ducal court.
The Bishop of Autun, nephew of General Marbeuf, had been interested in behalf of the Bonapartes; and it was at his school that Joseph was to be educated for the Church. Napoleon was also placed there till he could learn French enough for Brienne. On January 1, 1779, therefore, he began his studies.
The Abbé Chardon, who was his teacher, says that he was a boy of thoughtful and gloomy character. “He had no playmate and walked about by himself.” Very naturally. He was a stranger to all the boys, he was in a strange country, he could not at first speak the language, he could not understand those who did speak it—how was the homesick lad to be sociable and gay under such conditions? Besides, he was Corsican, a despised representative of a conquered race. And the French boys taunted him about it. One day, according to the teacher, the boys threw at him the insult that “the Corsicans were a lot of cowards.” Napoleon flashed out of his reserve and replied, “Had you been but four to one you would never have conquered us, but you were ten to one.” To pacify him the teacher remarked, “But you had a good general—Paoli.”—“Yes,” answered the lad of ten, “and I would like to resemble him.”
According to the school register and to Napoleon’s own record, he remained at Autun till the 12th of May, 1779. He had learned “enough French to converse freely, and to make little themes and translations.”
In the meantime, Charles Bonaparte had been attending his king, the young Louis XVI., at Versailles. Courtier in France as in Ajaccio, the adroit lawyer had pleased. A bounty from the royal purse swelled the pay of the Corsican delegates, a reward for “their excellent behavior”; and for once Charles Bonaparte was moderately supplied with funds.
On May 19, 1779, Napoleon entered the college of Brienne. Its teachers were incompetent monks. The pupils were mainly aristocratic French scions of the privileged nobility, proud, idle, extravagant, vicious. Most of these young men looked down upon Napoleon with scorn. In him met almost every element necessary to stir their dislike, provoke their ridicule, or excite their anger. In person he was pitifully thin and short, with lank hair and awkward manners; his speech was broken French, mispronounced and ungrammatical; it was obvious that he was poor; he was a Corsican; and instead of being humble and submissive, he was proud and defiant. During the five years Napoleon spent here he was isolated, moody, tortured by his own discontent, and the cruelty of his position. He studied diligently those branches he liked, the others he neglected. In mathematics he stood first in the school, in history and geography he did fairly well; Latin, German, and the ornamental studies did not attract him at all. The German teacher considered him a dunce. But he studied more in the library than in the schoolroom. While the other boys were romping on the playground, Napoleon was buried in some corner with a book.
On one occasion Napoleon, on entering a room and seeing a picture of Choiseul which hung therein, burst into a torrent of invective against the minister who had bought Corsica. The school authorities punished the blasphemy.
At another time one of the young French nobles scornfully said to Napoleon, “Your father is nothing but a wretched tipstaff.” Napoleon challenged his insulter, and was imprisoned for his temerity.
Upon another occasion he was condemned by the quartermaster, for some breach of the rules, to wear a penitential garb and to eat his dinner on his knees at the door of the common dining-room. The humiliation was real and severe; for doubtless the French lads who had been bullying him were all witnesses to the disgrace, and were looking upon the culprit with scornful eyes, while they jeered and laughed at him. Napoleon became hysterical under the strain, and began to vomit. The principal of the school happening to pass, was indignant that such a degradation should be put upon so dutiful and diligent a scholar, and relieved him from the torture.