child received the embrace reluctantly.

"It's all right now," said he, "but if ever we meet with swords
by our sides--" A threatening gesture ended the sentence.

Valence left. Bonaparte received his own appointment as
sub-lieutenant October 10, 1785. His was one of fifty-eight
commissions which Louis XVI. signed for the Ecole Militaire. Eleven
years later, November 15, 1796, Bonaparte, commander-in-chief of
the army of Italy, at the Bridge of Arcola, which was defended
by two regiments of Croats and two pieces of cannon, seeing his
ranks disseminated by grapeshot and musket balls, feeling that
victory was slipping through his fingers, alarmed by the hesitation
of his bravest followers, wrenched the tri-color from the rigid
fingers of a dead color-bearer, and dashed toward the bridge,
shouting: "Soldiers! are you no longer the men of Lodi?" As
he did so he saw a young lieutenant spring past him who covered
him with his body.

This was far from what Bonaparte wanted. He wished to cross first.
Had it been possible he would have gone alone.

Seizing the young man by the flap of his coat, he drew him back,
saying: "Citizen, you are only a lieutenant, I a commander-in-chief!
The precedence belongs to me."

"Too true," replied the other; and he followed Bonaparte instead
of preceding him.

That evening, learning that two Austrian divisions had been cut