Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/300

284 extant a letter written at that period, in which he very cleverly criticises the luxury and the laxity of the discipline which existed in the Military School. He found that the pupils had a large staff of servants, kept an expensive stud of horses and a number of grooms; and to his realistic and practical mind all this was abomination.

"Would it not be better," he exclaimed, "of course without interrupting their studies, to compel them to buy enough for their own wants, that is to say, without compelling them to do their own cooking, to let them eat soldiers' bread, or something similar, to accustom them to beat and brush their own clothes, and to clean their own boots and shoes?"

In thus writing young Napoleon was describing the things he had to do himself, then and afterwards, for a long time. It was these hardships of his childhood that helped to make him and to, at the same time, mar his nature.

"All these cares spoiled my early years," he himself said in 1811. "They influenced my temper and made me grave before my time."

Unlike some of the boys around him, Napoleon refused to run into debt. A friend of his family, seeing him in low spirits, offered to lend him money so as to be able to make a better show.

Napoleon grew very red and refused, saying: "My mother has already too many expenses, and I have no business to increase them by extrava-