Napoleon would often find fault with Joseph's lack of spirit, as he
called it; but Joseph, all through life, liked to take things easy, and
hated to face trouble. Most of us do, you know; but it was the readiness
of Napoleon to boldly face danger, and to attempt what appeared to be
the impossible, that made him the self-reliant boy, the successful man,
the conqueror, the emperor, the hero.




CHAPTER NINE

THE LONELY SCHOOL-BOY

While Napoleon was at Autun school, studying French, and preparing for
entrance into the military academy, his father, Charles Bonaparte, was
at Versailles, trying to get a little more money from the king, in
return for his services as Corsica's delegate to France.

At the same time he was working to complete the arrangements which
should permit him to enter Napoleon at the military school, at the
expense of the state. This he finally accomplished; and on the
twenty-third of April, in the year 1779, Napoleon entered the royal
military school at Brienne.

There were ten of these military schools in France. They were started
as training-schools for boys who were to become officers in the French
army. The one at Brienne was a bare and ugly-looking lot of buildings
in the midst of trees and gardens, looking down toward the little River
Aube, and near to the fine old chateau, or nobleman's house, built, a