chapter 4 don quixote and sancho

　Mr. Fuwa's body recovered quickly, which was normal, it was just seasickness. It was the sort of ailment that wasn't good enough after a good night's sleep. So they continued on their way early the next morning, and after a long day of bumping about in the four-wheeled carriage, the party finally reached Marseilles, a major town in the south of France.

　　The two Joseph brothers were placed in an aristocratic high school in Marseille, the Lycée Orton, to study French. This was an aristocratic school, and naturally, all the students in the school were aristocrats, albeit "provincial aristocrats". However, even if they were "provincial nobles", they were far more "noble" than "Corsican nobles". Without mentioning anything else, in terms of living style alone, it is almost like crushing these two poor boys from Corsica.

　　At first, when they realized that there were two poor noble students from Corsica coming to their school, the students were generally very interested and welcoming.

　　This was not because they were hospitable, but because having two bumpkins coming to their school was also an interesting thing in the eyes of the noble students. It was like the ladies in the Grand View Garden, although none of them looked down on the poor Liu Lou Lou, everyone would look forward to her visit. The children of the "provincial aristocracy" in the school were also in great need of some funny "Liu Lou Lou" to enrich their empty and boring after-school life. Although they would be regarded as "country bumpkins" when they were among the great aristocrats in Paris, the two men had just arrived at the Lycée d'Orton.

　　The image of the two of them when they first arrived at Orton High School was indeed very much in line with the expectations of the aristocratic students at the school. Both of them grew up by the sea, and both of them were wild and rough, so their faces were dark red, and their skin was far less delicate than those of their classmates, which made them full of the characteristics of the lower class. Coupled with the obvious difference in height between the two men, Joseph was tall and thin, while Napoleon was short and dun, if placed in China, the height difference between the two brothers might remind people of the Water Margin in the Wu Da and Wu Er, and here, the students immediately gave each of them a nickname: one is called Don Quixote, the other is called Sancho.

　　Until many years later, when Joseph wrote letters to Napoleon, he would sometimes jokingly call Napoleon "my dear Sancho" and write "Don Quixote de La Mancha" at the end of the letter. Napoleon, in return, would call himself "Don Quixote" and Joseph "Sancho". He felt that he was closer in character to the knight who fought with the windmills, while the sensible Joseph was closer to Sancho.

　　The two men did have many things that brought joy to the students of this school. The first was the accent when speaking. The aristocratic students in the school, despite being provincials, all spoke French with some Parisian flavor, and as for the Joseph brothers, the older brother, Joseph, was slightly better, his French, though he also had a serious accent problem, was, at least, French. But the younger brother Napoleon is not the same, his French, not only with a serious Corsican accent, and even mixed with a lot of Corsican words, almost can not quite be considered French. So one of the favorite things for those bored students in the class to do was to mimic the accents of the two brothers and some of their actions that seemed so earthy to these aristocratic children.

　　Generally speaking, the more shallow and incompetent a person is, the more he or she likes to laugh at other people's shortcomings and take pleasure in it, especially if that person is significantly more competent than he or she is.

　　Although Napoleon's spoken French wasn't great, both he and Joseph were quite outstanding in terms of learning, and naturally, Joseph didn't need to say that it wasn't difficult for a traveler from the twenty-first century, who possessed far more knowledge than in this era, to pose as a schoolmaster in an aristocratic school. Even more so, for him, how to conceal his knowledge that was too much beyond the times, that was what caused him more headaches. Basically, except for subjects like art, in terms of academic performance, he could easily crush everyone in the school.

　　As for Napoleon, although he didn't have all those open-ended cheating contraptions in Joseph's head, he was naturally smart, plus ever since he learned from Joseph about the importance of knowledge, especially knowledge of math, geography, history, and physics, for war, he had a very serious attitude towards his studies, especially for these subjects that were closely related to war. Napoleon's natural intelligence, coupled with a serious attitude toward learning, made him excel in these subjects, and the "provincial nobility" students were far from Napoleon in these subjects; in almost all subjects except spoken language, they were also far from Joseph.

　　After being intellectually suppressed by the two brothers, the aristocratic students became more and more interested in maliciously imitating the brothers' colloquialisms. At first, they targeted Joseph. This was natural, Joseph was very tall, although he was currently thinner and appeared a bit like a bamboo pole, but this was just a byproduct of the teenager's rapid growth in height, who among the young people didn't want to grow a bit taller, and then a bit taller? And Joseph had good looks, though his face was slightly darker. Add to that the fact that he was pretty much at the top of his class in every subject, and you say, why wouldn't such a guy hurry up and die!

　　However, the noble classmates soon gave up on Joseph as a target because whenever they deliberately provoked in front of Joseph, mimicking his accent and whatnot, they always failed to get what they hoped for in return. They hoped to see Joseph panic or get angry in the face of these gestures, either of which would have given them a chance to appreciate and bring them endless pleasure.

　　However, Yosef's reaction was completely outside of their expectations. When they played their act in front of Yosef, Yosef did not show trepidation or anger, but rather appreciated their performance with a smile on his face, and he looked at them as if he were looking at monkeys in a circus.

　　Such a reaction naturally could not bring them joy, so they turned their aim more toward Napoleon. Napoleon clearly had more weaknesses than Joseph. Napoleon was shorter, had a heavier accent, and had more black spots. More importantly, Napoleon's reactions were a little more playful. For whenever they provoked Napoleon in this way, they could easily appreciate his anger.

　　But they soon realized that it wasn't fun to irritate Napoleon anymore. Unlike irritating Joseph, irritating Joseph, while getting no pleasure, was at least not dangerous. But Napoleon, once he felt offended, would not hesitate to strike back, and to do so in the manner of the lowest of men, that is, with violence, punching, kicking, and even biting with his teeth.

　　The young masters in the school were taller than Napoleon, but they lacked the training to engage in this type of fighting. Fighting skills were also compulsory for the nobility, but that meant fighting with swords. (At that time, it was still popular to solve problems by dueling, and the fighting skill of the swift sword became a mandatory skill for the nobles. Of course, as far as the age of those middle school students in Orton Middle School, they weren't old enough to control a weapon like the Swift Sword, so they usually learned more small sword techniques.) As for the unarmed, barbarian fighting style of fighting with fists, nails as well as teeth, they knew nothing about it.

　　So when it came to a fight, it was always them who suffered. Moreover, Napoleon's hands were very dirty, hitting people very painfully, but not leaving any too obvious marks. And once the teacher came, Napoleon always acted worse and more aggrieved than the one who was beaten.

　　As a result, it became clear that none of the Joseph brothers were all that much fun, to the point that not only were they not fun, they made them all kinds of uncomfortable. So fewer people came forward to mess with the brothers, but on the other hand, the two brothers were isolated by those of his classmates. But neither Joseph nor Napoleon gave a damn about this isolation.

　　"It's a bunch of guys destined for history. It's not worth betting even the slightest bit of energy on them. The thought that such fellows would later become the upper echelons of France, I was visiting Toulon. The anxiety I felt at the sight of those warships dissipated. What's more, you know, I'm not going to stay in this school too long.

　　Mr. Lvvre, who teaches mathematics, told me that the school can recommend a student to go to the Military Academy of Brienne this year, a publicly-funded military academy, where I'll be able to learn all sorts of military techniques. If Joseph doesn't compete with me, (Joseph is an over-ambitious guy who has his heart set on those schools in Paris and the University of Paris, and he doesn't think about how old he is. Besides, how could our family afford to pay for a school like the University of Paris?) I felt sure that I would be able to get the place, because the other dainty, womanizing sons of nobles had no intention of going there to study. Yet I felt it was the perfect school for me." This is what Napoleon had to say about those of his classmates at Orton High School in a letter he wrote to his father in the letters of Napoleon the Great that became public many years later.

　　As the letter says, Napoleon would not be able to continue his studies at Orton High School for much longer. Perhaps at the tail end of the spring he would have to transfer to the military school at Brienne. As for his brother Joseph, he was indeed at this time, as Napoleon had said, bent on the School of Louis the Great in Paris.

　　This school was the best secondary school in all of France, and more importantly, it had the highest scholarships in all of France for students who excelled in their studies. These scholarships fully support all the normal expenses of a student's studies and life in Paris. For example, Robespierre, who was to become a great man in the future, received a full six hundred francs when he graduated from the school of Louis the Great.