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A mode of life so very singular, could not fail to be marked. Incapable to esti- mate his uncommon merit or rather to penetrate his true motives, his superiors, and his school fellows taxed him as foolish and ridiculous. Every mean was tried, in vain, to restore him to himself, by mak- ing him change his conduct. Insensible to affronts which he could not resent. he repelled the railleries of the masters by silence and disdain. Humiliation and even punishment, which were also employed, had no better success.
I believe I have forgotten to mention, that the meetings of the young then were established on a military footing. Divided into companies, they composed a little bat- tallion, the Colonel and all the officers of which chosen, among ourselves, were de- corated by the ornaments which distinguish. the French uniform Bonaparte had the rank of Captain. • One would suppose that he must be sensible to the loss of a distinc- tion only granted to merit and every day becoming more flattering from the eager- ness by which it was fought for by the young men. A council of war established with all its forms, declared him unworthy to command those comrades whose good-will he dispised. After the sentence was read, which degraded him to the last place of the battalion, he was stripped of the dis
