At another time one of the young French nobles scornfully said to Napoleon, “Your father is nothing but a wretched tipstaff.” Napoleon challenged his insulter, and was imprisoned for his temerity. Upon another occasion he was condemned by the quartermaster, for some breach of the rules, to wear a penitential garb and to eat his dinner on his knees at the door of the common dining-room. The humiliation was real and severe; for doubtless the French lads who had been bullying him were all witnesses to the disgrace, and were looking upon the culprit with scornful eyes, while they jeered and laughed at him. Napoleon became hysterical under the strain, and began to vomit. The principal of the school happening to pass, was indignant that such a degradation should be put upon so dutiful and diligent a scholar, and relieved him from the torture. “Ah, Bourrienne! I like you: you never make fun of me!” Is there nothing pathetic in this cry of the heart-sick boy? To his father, Napoleon wrote a passionate appeal to be taken from the school where he was the butt of ridicule, or to be supplied with sufficient funds to maintain himself more creditably. General Marbeuf interfered in his behalf, and supplied him with a more liberal allowance. The students, in turn, were invited to the table of the head-master. One day when this honor was accorded Napoleon, one of the monk-professors sweetened the boy’s satisfaction by a contemptuous reference to Corsica and to Paoli. It seems well-nigh incredible that the clerical teachers should have imitated the brutality of the supercilious young nobles, but Bourrienne is authority for the incident. Napoleon broke out defiantly against the teacher, just as he had done against his fellow-students: “Paoli was a great man; he loved his country; and I will never forgive my father for his share in uniting Corsica to France. He should have followed Paoli.” Mocked by some of the teachers and tormented by the richer students, Napoleon withdrew almost completely within himself. He made no complaints, prayed for no relief, but fell back on his own resources. When the boys mimicked his pronunciation, turned his name into an offensive nickname, and flouted him with the subjection of his native land, he either remained disdainfully silent, or threw himself single-handed against his tormentors. To each student was given a bit of ground that he might use it as he saw fit. Napoleon annexed to his own plat two adjacent strips which their temporary owners had abandoned; and by hedging and fencing made for himself a privacy, a solitude, which he could not otherwise get. Here he took his books, here he read and pondered, here he indulged his tendency to day-dreaming, to building castles in the air.