would be forced to do it; and, distressed beyond measure at thought of
what he must go through, he sought his room, and flung himself on his
bed in an agony of tears. He actually had what in these days we call a
fit of hysterics.

While thus "broken up," his room door opened. Supposing that the
teacher, or one of the monitors, had come to prepare him for the
dreadful sentence, he refused to move.

Then a voice, that certainly was not the one he expected, called to him.
He raised a flushed and tearful face from the bed, and met the inquiring
eyes of his father's old friend, and the "protector" of the Bonaparte
family, General Marbeuf, formerly the French commander in Corsica.

"Why, Napoleon, boy! what does all this mean?" inquired the general.
"Have you been in mischief? What is the trouble?"

The visit came as a climax to a most exciting event. In it Napoleon saw
escape from the disgrace he so feared, and the injustice against which
he so rebelled. With a joyful shout he flung himself impulsively at his
friend's feet, clasped his knees, and begged for his protection. The
boy, you see, was still unnerved and over-wrought, and was not as cool
or self-possessed as usual.

Gradually, however, he calmed down, and told General Marbeuf the whole
story.

The general was indignant at the sentence. But he laughed heartily at
the idea of this fourteen-year-old boy challenging another to a duel.