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 in
gloomy isolation, he caught in the exploits of Greeks and Romans a
distant echo of the tragic romance of his beloved island home. The
librarian of the school asserted that even then the young soldier had
modelled his future career on that of the heroes of antiquity; and we
may well believe that, in reading of the exploits of Leonidas,
Curtius, and Cincinnatus, he saw the figure of his own antique
republican hero, Paoli. To fight side by side with Paoli against the
French was his constant dream. "Paoli will return," he once exclaimed,
"and as soon as I have strength, I will go to help him: and perhaps
together we shall be able to shake the odious yoke from off the neck
of Corsica."

But there was another work which exercised a great influence on his
young mind--the "Gallic War" of Cæsar. To the young Italian the
conquest of Gaul by a man of his own race must have been a congenial
topic, and in Cæsar himself the future conqueror may dimly have
recognized a kindred spirit. The masterful energy and all-conquering
will of the old Roman, his keen insight into the heart of a problem,
the wide sweep of his mental vision, ranging over the intrigues of the
Roman Senate, the shifting politics of a score of tribes, and the
myriad administrative details of a great army and a mighty
province--these were the qualities that furnished the chief mental
training to the young cadet. Indeed, the career of Cæsar was destined