The character which Napoleon established at Brienne varied with the point of view. To the students generally he appeared to be unsocial, quarrelsome, and savage. To some of the teachers he seemed to be mild, studious, grateful. To others, imperious and headstrong. M. de Keralio reported him officially as submissive, upright, thoughtful, “conduct most exemplary.” On all he made the impression that he was inflexible, not to be moved after he has taken his stand. Pichegru, afterward conqueror of Holland, and after that supporter of the Bourbons, was a pupil-teacher to Napoleon at Brienne, and is thought to have been the quartermaster who put upon him the shame of eating on his knees at the dining-room door. Bourbon emissaries were eager to win over to their cause the brilliant young general, Bonaparte, and suggested the matter to Pichegru. “Do not try it,” said he. “I knew him at Brienne. His character is inflexible. He has taken his side, and will not change.” When Napoleon, in his last years, came to speak of his school days, he seemed to have forgotten all that was unpleasant. Time had swept its effacing fingers over the actual facts, and he had come to believe that he had not only been happy at Brienne, but had been a jolly, frolicksome fellow--a very cheerful, sociable, popular lad. It was some other youth who had shunned his fellows, fenced himself within a garden wall, combated all intruders with sticks and stones, and hated the French because they teased him so. The real Napoleon, according to the captive Emperor, was a boy like other boys, full of fun, frolic, tricks, and games. One of the sportive tricks of the merry and mythical Bonaparte was this: An old commandant, upward of eighty, was practising the boys at target-shooting with a cannon. He complained that the aim was bad, none of the balls hit the target. Presently, he asked of those near him if they had seen the ball strike. After half a dozen discharges, the old general bethought himself of counting the balls. Then the trick was exposed--the boys had slipped the balls aside each time the gun was loaded.