This sense of honor he had drawn in with his mother’s milk; and his father had developed it in him.  Everything about him indicated pride:  the upright carriage of his head, the glance of his black eyes which seemed to pierce the objects he looked at.  He loved the Stanislas uniform which his father had worn before him, and which had been worn by Gouraud and Baratier, whose fame was then increasing, and Rostand, then in all the new glory of Cyrano and L’Aiglon.  He had an exact appreciation of his own dignity.  Though he listened attentively in class, he would never ask for information or advice from his classmates.  He hated to be trifled with, and made it understood that he intended to be respected.  Never in all his life did he have a low thought.  If he ever varied from the nobleness which was natural to him, silence was sometimes sufficient to bring him to himself.

With a mobile face, full of contrasts, he was sometimes the roguish boy who made the whole class shake with laughter, and involved it in a whirlwind of games and tricks, and at others the serious, thoughtful pupil, who was considered to be self-absorbed, distant, and not inclined to reveal himself to anybody.  The fierce soldier of the petite guerre was also a formidable adversary at checkers.  Here, however, he became patient, only moving his pieces after long reflection.  None of the students could beat him, and no one could take him by surprise.  If he was beaten by a professor, he never rested until he had had his revenge.  His power of will was far beyond his years, but it needed to be relaxed.  To study and win to the head of his class was nothing for his lively intelligence, but his health was always delicate.  He would appear wrapped in cloaks, comforters, waterproof coats, and then vanish into the infirmary.  This boy who did not fear blows, bruises, or falls, was compelled to avoid draughts and to diet.  Nobody ever heard him complain, nor was any one ever to do so.  Often he had to give up work for whole months at a time; and in his baccalaureate year he was stopped by a return of the infantile enteritis.  “Three months of rest,” the doctor ordered at Christmas.  “You will do your rhetoric over again next year,” said his father, who came to take him home.  “Not at all,” said the boy; “the boys shall not get ahead of me”—­a childish boast which passed unnoticed.  At the end of three months of rest and pleasant walks around Compiegne, the child remarked:  “The three months are up, and I mean to present myself in July.”  “You haven’t time; it is impossible.”  He insisted.  So they discovered, at Compiegne, the Pierre d’Ailly school, in a building which since then has been ruined by a shell.  It was his idea to attend these classes as a day scholar, just for the pleasure of it.  He promised to continue to take care of himself at home.  And in the month of July, at the age of fifteen, he took his bachelor degree, with mention.

But the bow cannot long remain bent, and hence certain diversions of his, ending sometimes in storms, but not caused by any ill-will on his part, for it was repugnant to him to give others pain.  The following autumn he returned to Stanislas College, and resumed his school exploits.