Supposing that the teacher, or one of the monitors, had come to prepare him for the dreadful sentence, he refused to move.
Then a voice, that certainly was not the one he expected, called to him.
He raised a flushed and tearful face from the bed, and met the inquiring eyes of his father's old friend, and the "protector" of the Bonaparte family, General Marbeuf, formerly the French commander in Corsica.
"Why, Napoleon, boy! what does all this mean ?" inquired the general.
"Have you been in mischief?
What is the trouble ?" The visit came as a climax to a most exciting event.

In it Napoleon saw escape from the disgrace he so feared, and the injustice against which he so rebelled.

With a joyful shout he flung himself impulsively at his friend's feet, clasped his knees, and begged for his protection.

The boy, you see, was still unnerved and over-wrought, and was not as cool or self-possessed as usual.
Gradually, however, he calmed down, and told General Marbeuf the whole story.
The general was indignant at the sentence.

But he laughed heartily at the idea of this fourteen-year-old boy challenging another to a duel.
"Why, what a fire-eater it is!" he cried.