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might have excited the ill-humour of a Republican and Bonaparte had long, manifeſted his ſentiments in that reſpect. However that may be time ſeems to have much-ſoftened that unfeeling roughneſs, for he is not leſs celebrated by his moderation towards his enemie, than by his moſt brilliant exploits
Bonaparte quitted the ſchool of Brienne at the end of the year 1785. M. le Chevalier Renault, then Inſpector General knew how to eliminate the merit of that young man, to which he did juſtice, not withſtanding the bitter complaints of his maſters, whom his hard ſtubborn character had generally rendered unfriendly to him.
There was, in that year, a promotion of ſeveral of the King's pupils, whom their progreſſes in the ſtudies, had rendered worthy to be ſent to the Military School of Paris: Bonaparte (illegible text)s of the nunber; his talents gave him value in the eyes of a gallant officer, who himſelf owed his preferment and this fortune to his own merit, and to the univerſal teſtimony of an irreproachable conduct. On his arrival at Paris, he teſtfied his inclination to ſerve in the artillery becauſe this and the engineers were the only corps in France where intereſt and riches could not ſo eaſily uſurp the place due to merit: He applied himſelf, with an unwearied zeal, to the mathematics, which then became his principal
