and God alone knows
what a father, and what were his attachment and devotion to us. Alas!
everything taught us to look to him as the support of our youth. But the
will of God is unalterable. He alone can console us."

These letters from a boy of sixteen would scarcely give one the idea
that Napoleon was the selfish and sullen youth that his enemies are
forever picturing; they rather show him as he was,--quiet, reserved,
reticent, but with a heart that could feel for others, and a sympathy
that strove to lessen, for the mother he loved, the burden of sorrow and
of loss.

That the death of his father, and the "hard times" that came upon the
Bonapartes through the loss of their chief bread-winner, did sober the
boy Napoleon, and made him even more retiring and reserved, there is no
doubt. His old friend, General Marbeuf, was no longer in condition to
help him; and, indeed, Napoleon's pride would not permit him to receive
aid from friends, even when it was forced upon him.

"I am too poor to run into debt," he declared.

So he became again a hermit, as in the early days at Brienne school. He
applied himself to his studies, read much, and longed for the day when
he should be transferred from the school to the army.

The day came sooner than even he expected. He had scarcely been a
year at the Paris school when he was ordered to appear for his final
examination. Whether it was because his teachers pitied his poverty, and
wished him to have a chance for himself, or whether because, as some
would have us believe, they wished to be rid of a scholar who criticised
their methods, and was fault-finding, unsocial, and "exasperating," it
is at least certain that the boy took his examinations, and passed them
satisfactorily, standing number forty in a class of fifty-eight.

"You are a lucky boy, my Napoleon," said his roommate, Alexander des
Mazes; "see! you are ahead of me. I am number fifty-six; pretty near to
the foot that, eh?"

"Near enough, Alexander," Napoleon replied; "but I love you fifty-six
times better than any of the other boys; and what would you have, my
friend? Are not we two of the six selected for the artillery? That is
some compensation. Now let us apply for an appointment in the same
regiment."

They did so, and secured each a lieutenancy in an artillery regiment.
This, however, was not hard to secure; for the artillery service was
considered the hardest in the army; and the lazy young nobles and
gentleme