This was the end of Napoleon's naval ambitions, once so intense that he actually thought of

applying to the Royal Navy in England for a cadetship. To this unlikely historical might-have-
been can be added a more sombre possibility. In expressing his continuing enthusiasm for the
Navy in 1 784, Napoleon mentioned his ambition of sailing with the great French navigator La
Perouse, then preparing for a Pacific expedition to rival those of Captain Cook. La Perouse sailed
in 1785 but three years later was shipwrecked with the loss of all hands at Vanikoro Island in the
south-west Pacific, between the Solomons and the New Hebrides. But for an administrative
decision in Paris, the great European conqueror could easily have died in obscurity in an oceanic
grave. Napoleon and his three schoolfellows, whose names have been preserved for history
(Montarby de Dampierre, Castries de Vaux, Laugier de Bellecour) accompanied by a monk
(possibly Berton himself), left Brienne on 17 October by water coach and, after joining the Seine
at Pont Marie, began to enter the suburbs at 4 p.m. on the 19th. The cadets were allowed to linger
until nightfall before entering the military school, so Napoleon bought a novel from one of the
quayside bookstalls, allowing his comrade Castries de Vaux to pay. The choice of book was
surely significant: Gil Bias was the story of an impoverished Spanish boy who rose to high
political office. Then their religious chaperon insisted they say a prayer in the church of St-
Germain-des-Pres before entering the Ecole Royale Militaire. Built by the architect Gabriel
thirteen years before, the Ecole Royale was a marvel of Corinthian columns and Doric
colonnades looking out on to the Champ de Mars and already hailed as one of the sights of Paris.
Inside the building, carved, sculpted, painted and gilded walls, ceilings, doors and chimney-
pieces were picked out with a plethora of statues and portraits of military heroes. The classrooms
were papered in blue with gold ornamentation; there were curtains at the windows and doors.
Students slept in a large dormitory warmed by earthenware stoves, and 24 each boy had a
separate cubicle, with an iron bedstead, linen drapery to go over the bed, a chair and shelves, a
pewter jug and wash basin. Everything was on a lavish scale. There were 215 cadets in
Napoleon's time but staff outnumbered students for, apart from the thirty professors and a
librarian, there were priests, sacristans, riding instructors, grooms, stable hands, armourers, a
medical staff, concierges, guardians of the prison, doorkeepers, lamplighters, shoemakers,
wigmakers, gardeners, kitchen staff and no less than 1 50 servants. When Napoleon's name was
formally entered on the rolls as a gentleman cadet on 22 October, he was given a splendid blue
uniform, with red collar, splashes of yellow and scarlet on the cuffs, silver braid and white
gloves. Linen was changed three times a week and the entire uniform replaced every April and
October. The luxury at the military school rather shocked Napoleon, and when he came to power
he insisted on Spartan austerity at military academies. On St Helena Napoleon told Las Cases of
three delicious meals every day, with choice of desserts at dinner and said: 'We were
magnificently fed and served, treated in every way like officers possessed of great wealth,
certainly greater than that of most of our families and far above what many of us would enjoy
later on.' His memory was selective, for the daily routine was gruelling enough. Cadets began
their studies at 7 a.m. and finished at 7 p.m. - an eighthour day with breaks. Each lesson lasted
two hours, each class contained twenty to twenty-five students, and each branch of study was
taught by a single teacher and his deputy. Accordingly, there were sixteen instructors for the
eight subjects on the curriculum: mathematics, geography, history, French grammar,
fortification, drawing, fencing and dancing. Three days a week were spent on the first four
subjects and three days on the second four, so there were six hours' instruction in each discipline.
On Sundays and feastdays the cadets spent four hours in the classroom, writing letters or reading
improving books. In addition, there was drill every day as well as, on Thursdays and Sundays,
shooting practice and military exercises. Punishment for infraction of the rules was severe: arrest
and imprisonment with or without water. The most common misdemeanours committed were
leaving the building without official permission (almost never granted) and receiving
unauthorized pocketmoney from parents. Napoleon's academic progress closely mirrored his
years at Brienne. He was outstanding in mathematics, was an enthusiastic fencer, but poor at
drawing and dancing, and hopeless at German; as became clear later, he had absolutely no
linguistic talent. Once again he read omnivorously 25 and by now had a distinct taste for
Rousseau and Montesquieu. But also, once again, the student of Napoleon is confronted by a
number of anecdotes of doubtful credibility. He is alleged to have gone to the Champ de Mars in
March 1785 to see the balloonist Blanchard ascend in the type of hot-air balloon made famous by
the Montgolfier brothers. The story goes that Blanchard kept postponing the moment of take-off,
so that Napoleon became impatient, cut the ropes keeping the balloon earthbound, and thus
caused a scandal for which he was punished. But the sober historical record finds nothing more
to say than that on 15 May 1785 he was confirmed by the Archbishop of Paris, and on the z6th of
that month he took part in a review presided over by the Minister of War, Marshal Segur. For the
first time in his life Napoleon made a true friend. Alexandre Des Mazis, was an ardent royalist
from a military family in Strasbourg, who was in the year ahead of him and a senior cadet in
charge of musketry training. He needed to draw on the resources of this friendship when news
came that Carlo Buonaparte had died and the family was in straitened circumstances. Sustained
pain and vomiting had led the ailing Carlo to consult physicians in Paris, Montpellier and Aix-
en-Provence, but they were powerless against cancer. Carlo died on 24 February 1785, leaving
Napoleon in financial limbo. He wrote to his uncle Lucien, the archdeacon, asking him to sustain
the family until he qualified as an officer, and set to work to cram two or three years' work into
as many months. Carlo's death caused Napoleon considerable financial anxiety but no great
sorrow or grief. He despised his father and could not see that he had any achievements to his
credit. The emotions he felt seem to have been indifference and relief. In 1 8oz he rejected a
proposal by Montpellier Municipal Council to erect a monument to his father in these words:
'Forget it: let us not trouble the peace of the dead. Leave their ashes in peace. I also lost my
grandfather, my great-grandfather, why is nothing done for them? This leads too far.' Much later
he said Carlo's death was a happy accident, for he was an unsubtle political trimmer and in the
post1789 quicksands would certainly have made the kinds of blunders that would have finished
off Napoleon's career before it got started. Yet Napoleon, especially as a Corsican, could not
simply slough off his need for a father; at this stage he 'solved' the problem by elevating Paoli to
the position of father-figure. Napoleon immersed himself in his studies, now desperate to make
the grade as an artillery officer. Entry to the elite corps of the artillery was normally a two-stage
process. First came an examination on the first 26 volume of Etienne Bezout's Cours de
Mathematiques, the artilleryman's bible. There then followed a year in artillery school, after
which cadets were examined on the next three volumes of Bezout; if successful, candidates were
then commissioned as second lieutenants. Oustandingly gifted boys could take a single
examination on all four volumes of Bezout and go straight into a regiment with a commission.
Only a very few attempted this feat every year, but among them in 1785 was Napoleon
Buonaparte. Every summer an examiner came to the military school to test artillery candidates.
Until 1783 it had been the renowned Bezout himself, but then his place was taken by Pierre
Simon, marquis de Laplace. One of the great authentic scientific geniuses of the eighteenth
century, Laplace was a brilliant mathematician who specialized in astronomy. His theories
explained the motions of Saturn and Jupiter and its moons, the workings of the tides, the nebulae
in deep space, electromagnetism and molecular physics. In September 1785 Laplace subjected
Napoleon to a rigorous examination in differential equations and algebra as well as the practical
applications of mathematics.