Page:Entertaining history of the early years of General Bonaparte (2).pdf/5

( 5  ) dering science amiable the youth might not contract that dryness of manner which too frequently accompanies profound erudition.

It was in one of these schools that the Count de Marbœ̯uf was desirous to place the young Bonaparte. Corsica since being united to France, had obtained for its in- habitants among other privileges that of sharing the royal beneficence o that the Count had no difficulty to procure for his protege the place of one of the Eleves du Roi.

Ihe Marechal de Suger, then Minister of War, and charged with the department of Military Schools, placed Bonaparte in that of Brienne in Campagne; in which he entered I believe, in the beginning of if the year 1779

It was about fifteen or eighteen months afterwards that my father, availing himself on the right which all strangers of family had to educate their children in these royal institutions, sent me there to begin my edu- cation. Different in temper and character and younger than Bonaparte, I formed no particular friendship with him, but living under the same roof, and sharing the same exercises, I remarked him early as some- thing extraordinary perceiving no one a- mong one hundred and fifty youths, who in the least resembled him either in disposition or taste. In this I only confirmed an idea very generally allowed, that children are.