Laudator Temporis Acti

D.A. Bingham, A Selection from the Letters and Despatches of the First Napoleon, Vol. I (London: Chapman and Hall, 1884), p. 22:

On reporting himself at Auxonne, Napoleon declared that he had twice attempted to pass the straits and had twice been driven back by stress of weather, and produced certificates to this effect. Not only were his excuses accepted, but the Chevalier de Lance, by ante-dating his return, procured him three months' pay, which was a matter of importance to the needy lieutenant, who occupied a chamber which was nearly bare, and which in the way of furniture had only a miserable bed without curtains, a table covered with books and papers, and two chairs. Brother Louis was obliged to sleep on the floor in an adjoining closet.

Twenty years later, when King Louis fled from Holland, Napoleon exclaimed to Caulaincourt: "Abdicate without warning me! Run away to Westphalia as if flying from a tyrant! My brother injure instead of aiding me! That Louis I educated on my pay of a lieutenant. God knows at the expense of what privations I found means to send money to pay my brother's schooling! Do you know how I managed? By never entering a café or going into society; by eating dry bread, and brushing my own clothes so that they might last the longer. I lived like a bear, in a little room, with books for my only friends, and when, thanks to abstinence, I had saved up a few crowns, I rushed off to the bookseller's shop and visited his coveted shelves.....These were the joys and debaucheries of my youth."

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