Part 10 (2/2)

For, like all English boys, this young Lawley mingled with his love of justice an equal love for teasing: and like most of the boys at Brienne school, he declared it to be ”great fun to get the little Corsican mad.”

”Then must you help me to get away from here,” Napoleon declared. ”Look you, Lawley!” and the boy in great secrecy pulled a paper from his pocket; ”see now what I have written.”

The English boy took the paper, ran his eye over it, and laughed as loudly as he dared while on duty.

”My eye!” he said, ”it's in English, and pretty fair English too. A letter to the British Admiralty? Permission to enter the British navy as a mids.h.i.+pman, eh? Well, you Bonaparte, you are a cool one. A Frenchman in the British navy! Fancy now!”

”No, sir; a Corsican,” replied Napoleon. ”Why should it not be so? What have I received but scorn and insult from these Frenchmen? You English are more fair, and England is the friend of Corsica. Why should I not become a mids.h.i.+pman in your navy? The only difficulty, I am afraid, will be my religion.”

”Your religion!” cried Lawley, with a laugh; ”why, you young rascal! I don't believe you have any religion at all.”

”But my family have,” Napoleon protested. ”My mother's race, the Ramolini” (and the boy rolled out the name as if that respectable farmer family were dukes or emperors at least), ”are very strict. I should be disinherited if I showed any signs of becoming a heretic like you English; and if I joined the British navy, would I not be compelled to become a heretic, like you, Lawley?”

Lawley burst into such a loud laugh over the boy's religious scruples, of which he had never before seen evidence, that he aroused one of the teachers with his noise, and had to scud away, for fear of being caught, and punished for neglect of duty.

But he kept Napoleon's letter of application. He must have sent it, either in fun, or with some desire to befriend this badgered Corsican boy; for to-day Napoleon's letter still exists in the crowded English department, wherein are filed the archives of the British Admiralty.

At last, by the interest of certain of the friends whom the boy's misfortune, if not his pluck, had made for him--such lads as Lawley, the English boy, Bourrienne, Lauriston, and Father Patrault, the teacher of mathematics,--Napoleon was liberated with a reprimand; while the boy who had caused all the trouble went unpunished, save for the headache that Napoleon's well-aimed stone had given him and the scar the blow had left.

But the boy could not long stay out of trouble. The next time it came about, friends.h.i.+p, and not vindictiveness, was the cause.

Napoleon did not forget the good offices of his friends. Indeed, Napoleon never forgot a benefit. His final fall from his great power came, largely, because of the very men whom he had honored and enriched, out of friends.h.i.+p or appreciation for services performed in his behalf.

One day young Lauriston, who was on duty as a sort of sentry in the chestnut avenue that was one of Napoleon's favorite walks, left his post, and joining Napoleon, begged him to help him in a problem in mathematics which he had been too lazy or too stupid to solve.

”We will go to your garden, Straw-nose,” said Lauriston; for both friend and foe, after the manner of boys, used the nicknames that had by common consent been fastened upon their schoolfellows.

”We will not, then,” Napoleon returned. For, as you know, his garden was sacred, and not even his friends were allowed entrance. ”See, we will go beyond, to the seat under the big chestnut. But are you not on duty here?”

Lauriston snapped his fingers and shrugged his shoulders in contempt of duty. ”That for duty!” he exclaimed. ”My duty now is to get out this pig of a problem.”

Under the big chestnut, which was another of Napoleon's favorite resorts, the two boys put their heads together over Lauriston's problem, and it was soon made clear to the lad; for Napoleon was always good at mathematics.

But the time spent over the problem exhausted Lauriston's limit of duty; and when the teacher came to relieve him at his post, the boy was nowhere to be seen.

Now, at Brienne, military instruction was on military rules; and no crime against military discipline is much greater than ”absence without leave.”

So when, at last, young Lauriston was found in Napoleon's company, away from his post of duty, and beneath the big chestnut-tree, the boy was in a ”pretty mess.” But Napoleon never deserted his friends.

”Sir,” he said to the teacher, ”the fault is mine. I led young Lauriston away to”--he stopped: it would scarcely help his friend's cause to say that he had been helping him at his lessons; thus he continued, ”to show him my lists”--which was not an untruth, for he had shown the copy to Lauriston.

”Your lists, unruly one,” said the teacher--one of Napoleon's chief persecutors. ”And what lists, pray?”

”My lists of the possessions of England, here in my copy-book,” said Napoleon, drawing the badly scrawled blank-book from his pocket.

He handed it to the teacher.

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