ry school at Brienne was a great open
space looking down upon the town. Here, on a January afternoon in 1783,
a score of boys were hard at work building a snow fort. The winter had
been very cold and a great fall of snow at the first of the year had
covered the playground several feet deep. After each storm the boys in
the military school fought battles back and forth over the open ground,
and up and down the roads that led to the village; but this battle was
to be a memorable one.

A little Corsican named Bonaparte was in charge of the defending forces.
He was not very popular among his playmates. He kept very much to
himself, and when he did mix with the others he had a habit of ordering
them about. Most of the other boys were afraid of him. Time and again,
when he had been disturbed as he stood reading a book in a distant
corner of the schoolroom or walking by himself in the playground, he had
turned fiercely upon his playmates and had scattered them before him
with the passion of his face and words; but when they wanted a leader
the boys turned to Bonaparte, and now when they had decided to build a
great fort they left the direction of it entirely to his care.

The Corsican boy, who was fourteen years old, stood in the middle of the
ground, his hands clasped behind his back, nodding now in one direction,
now in another, as he ordered the boys where to bank the snow, how high
to build the ramparts, and in what lines. He was not very tall and his
face was quite colorless. Under a broad brow his piercing gray eyes
darted here and there, and then were quiet in study. He wore a blue
military coat with red facings and bright buttons, and a vest of blue
faced with white, and blue knee-breeches, and a military cocked hat.
From time to time he drew lines on the snow with a sharp-pointed stick.
Once or twice, when he found a boy idling, he spoke to him sharply, but
for the most part he kept strict silence.

After a time a young master, dressed like a priest, came out of the
school door and walked over toward Bonaparte. He smiled as he saw the
intense look on the boy's face, and the rough plan sketched before him
on the snow. He came up to the boy and stood looking down at him.

"Well, my young Spartan," said he, "what are you planning now? Some new
way to save the town from siege?"

The boy glanced up at his teacher, and a little smile parted his thin
lips. "No, Monsieur Pichegru, I was considering how we might drive the