ing of marriage she was studying order, economy, and careful management." It was from her that Napoleon inherited what M. Lévy calls "those instincts of honesty, of excessive carefulness in all matters in which money plays a part, which is one of the most characteristic features of Napoleon."
The education of the children was the first point to be determined. In those days anybody with influence with the clergy or at the Court could get a free education, and young Napoleon, having the first, was enabled in this way to get into the Royal College at Brienne, where boys were trained for the Navy. He had first, however, to spend some time at Autun to learn French—so thoroughly Italian was the man who became afterwards the most absolute ruler of Frenchmen the world has seen. In three months at Autun Napoleon had "learned sufficient French to enable him to converse easily and to write small essays and translations." At Brienne there were many things to make him unhappy: his foreign birth, his foreign accent, doubtless his foreign mistakes; but, above all things, his poverty. Even at school the inequalities of life make themselves bitterly felt; and Napoleon, with all his pride, love of command, and sensitiveness to slights, must have suffered more than most boys.
"At Brienne," he writes afterwards himself, "I was the poorest of all my schoolfellows. They always had money in their pockets, I never. I
