chers
mocked him, and deprived him of his position as captain in the school
battalion.

The climax of the miserable business was reached when to a taunt that
his ancestry was nothing, "his father a wretched tipstaff," Napoleon
replied by challenging his tormentor to fight a duel. For this offense
he was put in confinement while the instigator went unpunished. It was
by the intervention of Marbeuf that his young friend was at length
released. Bruised and wounded in spirit, the boy would gladly have
shaken the dust of Brienne from his feet, but necessity forbade.
Either from some direct communication Napoleon had with his protector,
or through a dramatic but unauthenticated letter purporting to have
been written by him to his friends in Corsica and still in existence,
Marbeuf learned that the chiefest cause of all the bitterness was the
inequality between the pocket allowances of the young French nobles
and that of the young Corsican. The kindly general displayed the
liberality of a family friend, and gladly increased the boy's
gratuity, administering at the same time a smart rebuke to him for his
readiness to take offense. He is likewise thought to have introduced
his young charge to Mme. Lomenie de Brienne, whose mansion was near
by.[3] This noble woman, it is asserted, became a second mother to the
lonely child: though there were no vacations, yet long holidays were
numerous and these were passed with her; her tenderness softened his
rude nature, the more so as she knew the value of tips to a
school-boy, and administered them liberally though judiciously.

[Footnote 3: The sources of these statements are two
letters of 5 April, 1781, and 8 October, 1783; first
printed in the Memoires sur la vie de Bonaparte, etc.,
etc., par le comte Charles d'Og.... This pseudonym
covers a still unknown author; the documents have been
for the most part considered genuine and have been
reprinted as such by many authorities, including Jung.
Though this author was an official in the ministry of
war and had its archives at his disposal, he gives one
letter without any authority and the other as in the
"Archives de la guerre." Many searchers, including the
writer, have sought them there without result. Latterly
their authenticity has been denied on the ground