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.
-- [Bourrienne is certainly wrong as to Bonaparte having no thought of the navy.

In a letter of 1784 to the Minister of War his father says of Napoleon that, "following the advice of the Comte de Marbeuf, he has turned his studies towards the navy; and so well has he succeeded that he was intended by M.de Keralio for the school of Paris, and afterwards for the department of Toulon.