But circumstances did not appear favorable/but contrariwise seemed to bo roused in enmity against the poor Corsican boy.  He had been scarcely half a year in Paris when he lost his father, and this grief, of which not a murmur escaped, which he kept within, devouring his heart, as every thing else which affected him, made his existence still more reserved, still more retired, and isolated him more and more.  Moreover, death had not only taken away the father, but also the support which Napoleon received from him.  The means of the Bonaparte family were very meagre, and barely sufficed to the support of Signora Letitia and her seven children.  Napoleon could not and dared not require or accept any help from his mother, on whom and on his brother Joseph it became incumbent to educate and support the young family.  He had to be satisfied to live upon the bounty which the royal treasury furnished to the young men at the military school.

But these limited means were to the ambitious boy a source of humiliation and pain.  The majority of his comrades consisted of young aristocrats, who, provided with ample means, led a gay, luxurious, dissipated life, had horses, servants, equipages, kept up one with another expensive dinner-parties and dejeuners, and seized every opportunity to organize a festivity or a pleasure-party.  Every departure, every admission of a scholar, was celebrated with brilliant display; every birthday furnished the opportunity of a feast, and every holiday became the welcomed occasion for a pleasure excursion which the young men on horseback, and followed by their servants in livery, made in the vicinity of Paris.

Napoleon could take no part in all these feastings and dissipations; and as his proud heart could not acknowledge his poverty, he put on the mask of a stoic, who, with contemptuous disregard, cast away vain pleasures and amusements, and scorned those who with unrestrained zest abandoned themselves to them.

He had scarcely been half a year in the military school when he gave loud expression to his jealousy and envy; the young Napoleon, nearly sixteen years old, undertook boldly to censure in the very presence of the teachers the regulations of the institution.  In a memorial which he had composed, and which he presented to the second director of the establishment, M. Berton, he gave utterance to his own views in the most energetic and daring manner, imposing upon the professors the duty of making a complete change in the institution; of limiting the number of servants, so that the military pupils might learn to wait upon themselves; of simplifying the noonday meal, so as to accustom them to moderation; of forbidding banquets, dejeuners, and pleasure-excursions, so that they might not become inured to a frivolous, extravagant mode of life.