On one occasion, while the youths were playing the death of Cæsar in their theatre, the wife of the porter, well known to the boys, presented herself at the door, and being refused admittance made some disturbance; the matter was referred to the young Napoleon, who was the officer in command on the occasion. “Remove that woman who brings here the license of camps!” said the future ruler of the revolution. At the age of fourteen he was sent to the military school at Paris, and at _sixteen_ he received a commission in a regiment of artillery. When the revolution broke out he adhered to the popular side. After the siege of Toulon, Dugommier, the general in command, wrote to the Convention, “Reward and promote that young man, for if you are ungrateful to him he will raise himself alone.” He commanded the artillery in 1794 during the campaign in Italy. Dumbion, in command of the army, who was old, submitted the direction of affairs principally to Bonaparte. His intimacy with the younger Robespierre, and his refusal of a command in La Vendée in the civil insurrection, led to his being deprived of his rank as a general officer, and he was reduced to private life. But his talents being known led to his being called to the command of the forces in Paris, which triumphed over the sections; his decision saved the Convention. The story of his introduction to and marriage of Josephine is too well known to need repetition. In 1796 Bonaparte took command of the forces destined to operate against Italy. With an army destitute of almost every thing, he, in a short time, overran Piedmont, conquered a peace with Sardinia, passed the Po and crossed the Adda at the Bridge of Lodi. The nervous eloquence of Napoleon, in his address to his soldiers, and the splendor of his success, intoxicated Paris with joy. The first day, they heard that the gates of the Alps were opened; the next, that the Austrians were separated from the Piedmontese army; the third that the Piedmontese army was destroyed and the fortresses surrendered. The rapidity of this success, the number of prisoners, exceeded all that had yet been witnessed. Every one asked, who was this young conqueror whose fame had burst forth so suddenly, and whose proclamations breathed the spirit of ancient glory? “The 13th of Vendemiaire and the victory of Montenotte,” said Napoleon, “did not induce me to think myself a superior character. It was after the passage of Lodi that the idea shot across my mind that I might become a decisive actor on the political theatre; then arose for the first time the spark of great ambition.”