yours were tending sheep on your Corsican hills. My father is an officer
of France; yours is"--

"Well, sir, and what is mine?" said Napoleon defiantly.

"Yours," Bouquet laughed with a mocking and cruel sneer, "yours is but a
lackey, a beggar in livery, a miserable tip-staff!"

Napoleon flung himself at the insulter of his father in a fury; but he
was caught back by those standing by, and saved from the disgrace of
again breaking the rules by fighting in the school-hall.

All night, however, he brooded over Bouquet's taunting words, and the
desire for revenge grew hot within him.

The boy had said his father was no gentleman. No gentleman, indeed!
Bouquet should see that he knew how gentlemen should act. He would not
fall upon him, and beat him as he deserved. He would conduct himself
as all gentlemen did. He would challenge to a duel the insulter of his
father.

This was the custom. The refuge of all gentlemen who felt themselves
insulted, disgraced, or persecuted in those days, was to seek vengeance
in a personal encounter with deadly weapons, called a duel. It is a
foolish and savage way of seeking redress; but even today it is resorted
to by those who feel themselves ill treated by their "equals." So
Napoleon felt that he was doing the only wise and gentlemanly thing
possible.

But, even then duelling was against the law. It was punished when men