Whether it was because his teachers pitied his poverty, and wished him to have a chance for himself, or whether because, as some would have us believe, they wished to be rid of a scholar who criticised their methods, and was fault-finding, unsocial, and "exasperating," it is at least certain that the boy took his examinations, and passed them satisfactorily, standing number forty in a class of fifty-eight.
"You are a lucky boy, my Napoleon," said his roommate, Alexander des Mazes; "see! you are ahead of me.

I am number fifty-six; pretty near to the foot that, eh ?" "Near enough, Alexander," Napoleon replied; "but I love you fifty-six times better than any of the other boys; and what would you have, my friend?
Are not we two of the six selected for the artillery?
That is some compensation.

Now let us apply for an appointment in the same regiment." They did so, and secured each a lieutenancy in an artillery regiment.
This, however, was not hard to secure; for the artillery service was considered the hardest in the army; and the lazy young nobles and gentlemen of the Paris military school had no desire for real work.
The certificate given to Napoleon upon his graduation read thus:--"This young man is reserved and studious, he prefers study to any amusement, and enjoys reading the best authors, applies himself earnestly to the abstract sciences, cares little for anything else.

He is silent, and loves solitude.

He is capricious, haughty, and excessively egotisical, talks little, but is quick and energetic in his replies, prompt and severe in his repartees, has great pride and ambition, aspiring to any thing.