Part 27

The Boy of Brienne: 1769-1821

The playground of the French military school at Brienne was a great open space looking down upon the town. Here, on a January afternoon in 1783, a score of boys were hard at work building a snow fort. The winter had been very cold and a great fall of snow at the first of the year had covered the playground several feet deep. After each storm the boys in the military school fought battles back and forth over the open ground, and up and down the roads that led to the village; but this battle was to be a memorable one.

A little Corsican named Bonaparte was in charge of the defending forces. He was not very popular among his playmates. He kept very much to himself, and when he did mix with the others he had a habit of ordering them about. Most of the other boys were afraid of him. Time and again, when he had been disturbed as he stood reading a book in a distant corner of the schoolroom or walking by himself in the playground, he had turned fiercely upon his playmates and had scattered them before him with the passion of his face and words; but when they wanted a leader the boys turned to Bonaparte, and now when they had decided to build a great fort they left the direction of it entirely to his care.

The Corsican boy, who was fourteen years old, stood in the middle of the ground, his hands clasped behind his back, nodding now in one direction, now in another, as he ordered the boys where to bank the snow, how high to build the ramparts, and in what lines. He was not very tall and his face was quite colorless. Under a broad brow his piercing gray eyes darted here and there, and then were quiet in study. He wore a blue military coat with red facings and bright buttons, and a vest of blue faced with white, and blue knee-breeches, and a military cocked hat. From time to time he drew lines on the snow with a sharp-pointed stick. Once or twice, when he found a boy idling, he spoke to him sharply, but for the most part he kept strict silence.

After a time a young master, dressed like a priest, came out of the school door and walked over toward Bonaparte. He smiled as he saw the intense look on the boy's face, and the rough plan sketched before him on the snow. He came up to the boy and stood looking down at him.

"Well, my young Spartan," said he, "what are you planning now? Some new way to save the town from siege?"

The boy glanced up at his teacher, and a little smile parted his thin lips. "No, Monsieur Pichegru, I was considering how we might drive the French troops out of Corsica."

"From Corsica!" exclaimed the master. "Corsica belongs to France, and you are a French cadet."

The boy shook his head solemnly. "Corsica should be free," he answered. "We are more Italian than French. I hate your barbarous words, my tongue trips over them. If I had my way no Frenchman would be left in the island."

"Then it's well you don't have your way, Bonaparte," said Monsieur Pichegru, laughing.

Suddenly the boy's brow clouded and his eyes grew serious. "You think I shan't have my way then? You don't know me, no one knows me. Wait until I grow up--then you shall see."

The master was used to this boy's strange fancies, and now he simply shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, well, we'll wait and see, but you must learn to curb your temper if you ever expect to do great things in the world."

"Why?" said the boy. "Must a general curb his temper? It's his part to give orders, not to take them, and that, sir, is the part I mean to play."

Again the master shrugged his shoulders, and the same quizzical smile his face always wore when watching this boy lighted his eyes.

"At least we are agreed on one thing, Bonaparte; we both of us know the most glorious profession in the world is that of the soldier. Ah, that I might some day be a captain of artillery!"

"Why not?" said the boy. "Isn't all of Europe one big camp? Can't any man rise who has strength to draw a sword? Believe me, Monsieur Pichegru, if you really want to be a captain you shall be one."

The master glanced at the boy, and then looked quickly away. "You are a strange lad, my little Spartan," said he. "I don't think I ever knew a boy quite like you."

The teacher moved away and the boy continued making his drawings with the pointed stick.

By the time the afternoon had ended the square fort of snow was finished. It was by far the finest fortification the boys of Brienne had ever built. It had four bastions and a rampart three and one-half feet long. Water was poured over the top and sides so that ice might form, and it looked like a very difficult place to take. When he considered it finished Bonaparte ordered the boys to quit work, and taking up a book he had thrown on the ground before him he started to stroll up and down by the farther wall of the parade. He was fond of walking here, book in hand, studying some military treatise, and, though only a boy, he had gained the power of shutting out all thoughts except those of his study.

Some of the boys had put together a rough sort of sky-rocket, and now brought it out from the house to light it in the playground. One boy touched a match to the fuse and the others leaped back out of reach. There was a loud explosion, and the firework, failing to shoot off as was intended, simply fizzled in a shower of sparks near the feet of the boy by the wall. He glanced up, looked at the flames and then at the circle of boys beyond.

In an instant he had seized his stick and was among them, hitting the boys over their heads and calling them all the names he could think of, beside himself in a sudden storm of passion because he had been disturbed. They fled before his attack like leaves before a whirlwind. In a few moments he had cleared the playground. Then he threw down the stick and picked up his book again.

A few minutes later Monsieur Pichegru, who had been told of the explosion, came over to him.

"You must not lose your temper in that way, my boy," said he. "Some day you will learn to regret it."

"Why?" said the Corsican lad. "I was studying here, I was reading how great Hannibal crossed the Alps, and that pack of fools broke in upon me. I will not be disturbed."

"You'll teach them to hate you," said the master, trying to argue the boy out of his ill temper.

"No, I'll teach them to do as I want, or let me alone when I wish it. That's all I ask of them, to be let alone." The master, shaking his head, thought that the boy would soon have his way, for day by day he grew more solitary and his playmates' fear of him increased.

The teachers at the school and also some of the servants saw the fort on the playground that afternoon, and the news of it sped through the town. According to report it was very different from the snow forts the boys usually built, much more ingenious and complicated, and along military lines. As a result the next morning many of the townspeople came to see the fortifications and examined them with great interest while the boys were indoors at study.