10 Things You Didn't Know About Napoleon
6. Napoleon Almost Got Kicked Out Of Military School
Even though Napoleon didn’t have small man syndrome, he certainly did have a piping hot temper. This was made clear by his antics at the École Militaire in Paris.
During his time at military school, Napoleon had several clashes with students and even teachers. On one occasion, he threw his rifle at a shooting instructor out of anger and almost killed Jean-Pierre Blanchard, a pioneering figure in balloon flight. The latter of these two examples somehow didn’t end in Napoleon being expelled, when he cut the rope on Blanchard’s balloon during high wind which was preventing a display from starting. Blanchard drifted off out of control but managed to safely land, only to later die in a balloon crash in the Netherlands in 1809.
Despite his clear impatience for hot air balloons, this wasn’t Napoleon’s last involvement with them.