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 eight-

hour 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 pocket-

money 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 post-

1789 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.