of the reasons why I am now the Emperor of France, and your master."

Before entering the army a year at a Parisian military school kept
Bonaparte busy. There, as at Brienne, he made his influence felt.
He found his fellow-pupils at Paris living in a state of luxury that
was not in accord with his ideas as to what a soldier should have.
Whether or not his new school-mates, after the time-honored custom,
tossed him in a blanket on the first night of his arrival, history
does not say, but Bonaparte had hardly been at the school a week when
he complained to the authorities that there was too much luxury in
their system for him.

"Cadets do not need feather-beds and eider-down quilts," he said;
"and as for the sumptuous viands we have served at mealtime, they are
utterly inappropriate. I'd rather have a plate of Boston baked beans
or steaming buckwheat cakes to put my mind into that state which
should characterize the thinking apparatus of a soldier than a dozen
of the bouchees financieres and lobster Newburgs and other made-
dishes which you have on your menu. Made-dishes and delicate
beverages make one mellow and genial of disposition. What we need is
the kind of food that will destroy our amiability and put us in a
frame of mind calculated to make willing to kill our best friends--
nay, our own brothers and sisters--if occasion arises, with a smiling
face. Look at me. I could kill my brother Joseph, dear as he is to
me, and never shed a tear, and it's buckwheat-cakes and waffles that
have done it!"

Likewise he abhorred dancing.

"Away with dancing men!" he cried, impatiently, at one time when in