At the Paris school Napoleon labored hard, as he had done at Brienne for five years, being especially proficient, as before, in mathematics. Everything was very luxurious here, and Bonaparte complained in a memorial, which he presented to the superintendent of the establishment, that the mode of life was too expensive and delicate for "poor gentlemen" and could not properly prepare them either for returning to their "modest homes," or for the hardships they would encounter in war. He proposed that instead of a regular dinner of two courses daily, the students should have ammunition bread and soldiers' rations, and be compelled to mend and clean their own stockings and shoes. "If I were king of France," he said one day to a companion, "I would change this state of things very quickly!" This memorial is said to have done him no service, for every third boy that looked on him was a duke from his cradle, while the Young Corsican was still a "pensioner of the king;" but the schools established by him after he became Emperor were on that severe plan. "Although believing in the necessity of show and magnificence in public life," says Meneval, his second private secretary, "Napoleon remained true to these principles, while lavishing wealth on his ministers and marshals: 'In your private life' said he, 'be economical and even parsimonious; in public be magnificent.'" On being reproved one day by an uncle of the Duchess d'Abrantes for ingratitude as a "pensioner of the king," he broke out furiously with an expression of indignation. "Silence!" said the gentleman at whose table he was sitting; "It ill becomes you, who are educated by the king's bounty, to speak as you do." "I am not educated at the _king's_ expense," replied Bonaparte, his face flushed with rage, "but at the expense of the _nation_!" Young Napoleon made but poor advancement in the German language while at this school, and by reason of it offended M. Bauer his tutor. One day, not being in his place, M. Bauer inquired where he was, and was told that he was attending his examination in the class of artillery. "Oh! so he does learn something," said the professor ironically. "Why, sire, he is the best mathematician in the school," was the reply. "Ah, I have always heard it remarked and I have always believed, that none but a fool could learn mathematics!" "It would be curious," said Napoleon, who related this anecdote when he was Emperor, "to know whether M. Bauer lived long enough to ascertain my real character, and to enjoy the confirmation of his own judgment." Napoleon had not been in the Military School of Paris a year,--during which time his father had died,--and had barely completed his sixteenth year, when he successfully passed the examination, in August 1785,--for a commission in a regiment of artillery.