A friend in
those days would have meant bankruptcy of the worst sort.
Furthermore, friends embarrass you when you get into public office,
and try to make you conspicuous when you'd infinitely prefer to saw
wood and say nothing. I took my loneliness straight, and that is one
of the reasons why I am now the Emperor of France, and your master."
Before entering the army a year at a Parisian military school kept
Bonaparte busy. There, as at Brienne, he made his influence felt.
He found his fellow-pupils at Paris living in a state of luxury that
was not in accord with his ideas as to what a soldier should have.
Whether or not his new school-mates, after the time-honored custom,
tossed him in a blanket on the first night of his arrival, history
does not say, but Bonaparte had hardly been at the school a week when
he complained to the authorities that there was too much luxury in
their system for him.
"Cadets do not need feather-beds and eider-down quilts," he said;
"and as for the sumptuous viands we have served at mealtime, they are
utterly inappropriate. I'd rather have a plate of Boston baked beans
or steaming buckwheat cakes to put my mind into that state which
should characterize the thinking apparatus of a soldier than a dozen
of the bouchees financieres and lobster Newburgs and other made-
dishes which you have on your menu.
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