Temperance and activity, he added, would render them robust, enable them to bear the severity of different seasons and climates, to brave the fatigues of war, and to inspire the respect and obedience of the soldiers under their command.

Thus reasoned Napoleon at the age of sixteen, and time showed that he never deviated from these principles.

The establishment of the military school at Fontainebleau is a decided proof of this.
As Napoleon was an active observer of everything passing around him, and pronounced his opinion openly and decidedly, he did not remain long at the Military School of Paris.

His superiors, who were anxious to get rid of him, accelerated the period of his examination, and he obtained the first vacant sub-lieutenancy in a regiment of artillery.
I left Brienne in 1787; and as I could not enter the artillery, I proceeded in the following year to Vienna, with a letter of recommendation to M.de Montmorin, soliciting employment in the French Embassy at the Court of Austria.
I remained two months at Vienna, where I had the honour of twice seeing the Emperor Joseph.

The impression made upon me by his kind reception, his dignified and elegant manners, and graceful conversation, will never be obliterated from my recollection.