mathematician had
made his equations.

"Oh! my child," said Bonaparte, "a compass makes a very bad wound."

"So much the better," replied Louis; "I can kill him."

"But suppose he kills you?"

"I'd rather that than bear his blow."

Bonaparte made no further objections; he loved courage, instinctively,
and his young comrade's pleased him.

"Well, so be it!" he replied; "I will tell Valence that you wish to
fight him, but not till to-morrow."

"Why to-morrow?"

"You will have the night to reflect."

"And from now till to-morrow," replied the child, "Valence will think me
a coward." Then shaking his head, "It is too long till to-morrow." And
he walked away.

"Where are you going?" Bonaparte asked him.

"To ask some one else to be my friend."

"So I am no longer your friend?"

"No, since you think I am a coward."

"Very well," said the young man rising.

"You will go?"

"I am going."

"At once?"

"At once."

"Ah!" exclaimed the child, "I beg your pardon; you are indeed my
friend." And he fell upon his neck weeping. They were the first tears he
had shed since he had received the blow.

Bonaparte went in search of Valence and gravely explained his mission to
him. Valence was a tall lad of seventeen, having already, like certain
precocious natures, a beard and mustache; he appeared at least twenty.
He was, moreover, a head taller than the boy he had insulted.

Valence replied that Louis had pulled his queue as if it were a
bell-cord (queues were then in vogue)--that he had warned him twice to
desist, but that Louis had repeated the prank the third time, whereupon,
considering him a mischievous youngster, he had treated him as such.

Valence's answer was reported to Louis, who retorted that pulling a
comrade's queue was only teasing him, whereas a blow was an insult.
Obstinacy endowed this child of thirteen with the logic of a man of
thirty.

The modern Popilius to Valence returned with his declaration of war. The
youth was greatly embarrassed; he could not fight with a child without
being ridiculous. If he fought and wounded him, it would be a horrible
thing; if he himself were wounded, he would never get over it so long as
he lived.

But Louis's unyielding obstinacy made the matter a serious one. A
council of the Grands (elder scholars) was called, as was usual in
serious cases. The Grands decided that one of their number could not
fight a child; but since this child persisted in considering