command? A runaway Corsican, a brigand, and the son of a brigand, like all Corsicans."

"My father is not a brigand," returned Napoleon. "He is a gentleman-which you are not."

"I am no gentleman, say you?" cried the enraged French boy. Why, young Straw-nose, my ancestors were gentlemen under great King Louis when 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.

66

Yours," Bouquet laughed with a mocking and cruel sneer, "yours is but a beggar in livery, a miserable constable."

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 breaking the rules by fighting in the school-hall.

Brienne: brē-ĕn'.—Straw-nose: the boys at the school called Napoleon by this name because when he first came to the school and was asked to tell his name, he pronounced it in the Italian way, as he had been brought up in that language; but the boys insisted that it sounded like the French words for "Straw-nose."-scaling: climbing.—Bouquet: bōo-kā'.-vindic'tive: wishing to do harm.-im'becile: one who is foolish or weak minded.-Cor'sican: an inhabitant of the island of Corsica, which is west of Italy.

THE GREAT SNOWBALL FIGHT AT

BRIENNE SCHOOL

PART II

All night, however, he brooded over Bouquet's insulting 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 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 revenge in a personal encounter with deadly weapons, called a duel. It is a foolish and savage way of seeking redress; but even to-day 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 were caught at it; for schoolboys, it was considered an unheard-of crime.

Still, though against the law, all men felt that it was the only way to salve their wounded honor. Napoleon felt it would be the only manly course open to him; so, early next morning, he dispatched a friend

with a note to Bouquet. That note was a challenge. It demanded that Mr. Bouquet should meet Mr. Bonaparte at such time and place as their seconds might select, there to fight with swords until the insult that Mr. Bouquet had put upon Mr. Bonaparte should be wiped out in blood.

There was fierceness for you! But it was the fashion.

"Mr. Bouquet," however, had no desire to meet the fiery young Corsican at swords' points. So, instead of meeting his enemy, he sneaked off to one of the teachers, who, as he knew, most disliked Napoleon, and complained that the Corsican, Bonaparte, was seeking his life, and meant to kill him.

At once Napoleon was summoned before the indignant instructor.

"So, sir!" cried the teacher, "is this the way you seek to become a gentleman and officer of your king? You would murder a schoolmate; you would force him to a duel! No denial, sir; no explanation. Is this so, or not so?"

Napoleon saw that words or explanations would be in vain.

"It is so," he replied.

"Can we, then, never work out your Corsican brutality?" said the teacher. "Go, sir! you are to be imprisoned until fitting sentence for your crime can be considered."

And poor Napoleon went into the school lock-up; while Bouquet, who was the most at fault, went free.

There was almost a rebellion in school over the imprisonment of the successful general who had so bravely fought the battle of the snow fort.

Napoleon passed a day in the lock-up; then he was again summoned before the teacher who had thus punished him.

66

"You are an incorrigible, young Bonaparte," said the teacher. Imprisonment can never cure you. Through it, too, you go free from your studies and tasks. I have considered the proper punishment. It is this: you are to put on to-day the penitent's woolen gown; you are to kneel during dinner-time at the door of the dining-room, where all may see your disgrace and take warning therefrom; you are to eat your dinner on your knees. Thereafter, in presence of your schoolmates assembled in the dining-room, you are to apologize to Mr. Bouquet, and ask pardon from me, as representing the school, for thus breaking the laws and acting as a bully and a murderer. Go, sir, to your room, and put on the penitent's gown."

Napoleon, as I have told you, was a high-spirited boy, and keenly felt disgrace. This sentence was as humiliating and mortifying as anything that could be put upon him. Rebel at it as he might, he knew that he 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.

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.

66

99

'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 overwrought, 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 injustice of the sentence. But he laughed heartily at the idea of