Page:Entertaining history of the early years of General Bonaparte (2).pdf/9

( 9  ) port of the library, to the absolute manage- ment of two of the boarders, to be chosen by their comrades. I was one of these whom my school fellows had named to that emplovment to which l gave up the leisure hours of three years perhaps the most pleas- ant in my life. It was then that I had re- peated opportunities to see Bonaparte, who perhaps in preference to me ought to have been chosen the librarian ; but oar compa- nions thought otherwise; and probably he would have disdained the appointment be- lieving all the moments lost to his own in struction which he must have sacrificed to the minute detail of such an office. How- ever that might be his caJls became so very frequent as to render me unreasonably out of humour. It is in the nature of men, and in my own justification, not less in that of children, to arrogate' to themselves, by degrees all the privileges of authority.— it was. indeed, my duty to have been com- plaisant but I found it more convenient to be capricious—Plagued by demands so often repeated, I sometimes pretended to mistake this application for teazing and intentional opportunities, and sometimes, also l had reason to repent my rudeness. Bonaparte young, was not more patient nor less posi- tive than now, and has made me frequently feel, that it was always unsafe to provoke him. At that time I should have been