The climax of Bonaparte's career at Brienne was in 1784, when he
directed a snowball fight between two evenly divided branches of the
school with such effect that one boy had his skull cracked and the
rest were laid up for weeks from their wounds.
"It was a wonderful fight," remarked Napoleon, during his campaign in
Egypt. "I took good care that an occasional missent ball should bowl
off the hat of M. Bouer, and whenever any particularly aristocratic
aristocrat's head showed itself above the ramparts, an avalanche fell
upon his facade with a dull, sickening thud. I have never seen an
American college football game, but from all I can learn from
accounts in the Paris editions of the American newspapers the effects
physical in our fight and that game are about the same."
In 1784, shortly after this episode, Napoleon left Brienne, having
learned all that those in authority there could teach him, and in
1785 he applied for and received admission to the regular army, much
to the relief of Joseph.
"If he had flunked and come back to Corsica to live," said Joseph, "I
think I should have emigrated. I love him dearly, but I'm fonder of
myself, and Corsica, large as it is, is too small to contain Napoleon
Bonaparte and his brother Joseph simultaneously, particularly as
Joseph is distinctly weary of being used as an understudy for a gory
battle-field.
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