The Abbé Chardon, who was his teacher, says that he was a boy of thoughtful and gloomy character. “He had no playmate and walked about by himself.” Very naturally. He was a stranger to all the boys, he was in a strange country, he could not at first speak the language, he could not understand those who did speak it--how was the homesick lad to be sociable and gay under such conditions? Besides, he was Corsican, a despised representative of a conquered race. And the French boys taunted him about it. One day, according to the teacher, the boys threw at him the insult that “the Corsicans were a lot of cowards.” Napoleon flashed out of his reserve and replied, “Had you been but four to one you would never have conquered us, but you were ten to one.” To pacify him the teacher remarked, “But you had a good general--Paoli.”--“Yes,” answered the lad of ten, “and I would like to resemble him.” According to the school register and to Napoleon’s own record, he remained at Autun till the 12th of May, 1779. He had learned “enough French to converse freely, and to make little themes and translations.” In the meantime, Charles Bonaparte had been attending his king, the young Louis XVI., at Versailles. Courtier in France as in Ajaccio, the adroit lawyer had pleased. A bounty from the royal purse swelled the pay of the Corsican delegates, a reward for “their excellent behavior”; and for once Charles Bonaparte was moderately supplied with funds. On May 19, 1779, Napoleon entered the college of Brienne. Its teachers were incompetent monks. The pupils were mainly aristocratic French scions of the privileged nobility, proud, idle, extravagant, vicious. Most of these young men looked down upon Napoleon with scorn. In him met almost every element necessary to stir their dislike, provoke their ridicule, or excite their anger. In person he was pitifully thin and short, with lank hair and awkward manners; his speech was broken French, mispronounced and ungrammatical; it was obvious that he was poor; he was a Corsican; and instead of being humble and submissive, he was proud and defiant. During the five years Napoleon spent here he was isolated, moody, tortured by his own discontent, and the cruelty of his position. He studied diligently those branches he liked, the others he neglected. In mathematics he stood first in the school, in history and geography he did fairly well; Latin, German, and the ornamental studies did not attract him at all. The German teacher considered him a dunce. But he studied more in the library than in the schoolroom. While the other boys were romping on the playground, Napoleon was buried in some corner with a book. On one occasion Napoleon, on entering a room and seeing a picture of Choiseul which hung therein, burst into a torrent of invective against the minister who had bought Corsica. The school authorities punished the blasphemy.