The note to which I have just alluded, and which was written by M. de Kerralio, then inspector of the military schools, describes Bonaparte in the following terms: 

Inspection of military schools
1784. 
Report made for his majesty by M. De Keralio.

M. de Buonaparte (Napoleon), born 15th August 1769, height 4 feet 10 inches 10 lines, is in the fourth class, has a good constitution, excellent health, character obedient, upright, grateful, conduct very regular; has been always distinguished by his application to mathematics.  He knows history and geography very passably.  He is not well up in ornamental studies or in Latin in which he is only in the fourth class.  He will be an excellent sailor.  He deserves to be passed on to the Military School of Paris.

Father Berton, however, opposed Bonaparte’s removal to Paris, because he had not passed through the fourth Latin class, and the regulations required that he should be in the third.  I was informed by the vice-principal that a report relative to Napoleon was sent from the College of Brienne to that of Paris, in which he was described as being domineering, imperious, and obstinate.

—­[Napoleon remained upwards of five years at Brienne, from April 1779 till the latter end of 1784.  In 1783 the Chevalier Keralio, sub-inspector of the military schools, selected him to pass the year following to the military school at Paris, to which three of the best scholars were annually sent from each of the twelve provincial military schools of France.  It is curious as well as satisfactory to know the opinion at this time entertained of him by those who were the best qualified to judge.  His old master, Le Guille, professor of history at Paris, boasted that, in a list of the different scholars, he had predicted his pupil’s subsequent career.  In fact, to the name of Bonaparte the following note is added:  “a Corsican by birth and character—­he will do something great, if circumstances favour him.”  Menge was his instructor in geometry, who also entertained a high opinion of him.  M. Bauer, his German master, was the only one who saw nothing in him, and was surprised at being told he was undergoing his examination for the artillery.  —­Hazlitt.]—­

I knew Bonaparte well; and I think M. de Keralio’s report of him was exceedingly just, except, perhaps, that he might have said he was very well as to his progress in history and geography, and very backward in Latin; but certainly nothing indicated the probability of his being an excellent seaman.  He himself had no thought of the navy.