Philippe, who was tired of school, wanted to serve under the Emperor; he saw a review at the Tuileries,--the last Napoleon ever held,--and he became infatuated with the idea of a soldier's life.

In those days military splendor, the show of uniforms, the authority of epaulets, offered irresistible seductions to a certain style of youth.

Philippe thought he had the same vocation for the army that his brother Joseph showed for art.

Without his mother's knowledge, he wrote a petition to the Emperor, which read as follows:-- Sire,--I am the son of your Bridau; eighteen years of age, five feet six inches; I have good legs, a good constitution, and wish to be one of your soldiers.

I ask you to let me enter the army, etc.
Within twenty-four hours, the Emperor had sent Philippe to the Imperial Lyceum at Saint-Cyr, and six months later, in November, 1813, he appointed him sub-lieutenant in a regiment of cavalry.