Free The Linguist and the Emperor by Daniel Meyerson

memoir. For though the schoolboy Jean François has amassed a great deal of precocious learning, still he is less mature than other children of his age and their laughter wounds an innocent nature formed by his solitary upbringing.
    But, though his classmates laugh, the authorities take a more serious view. In the masters’ view, this hiding of respectable books reflects a rebelliousness, a dangerous independence—not merely a schoolboy’s forgivable prurience. By Napoleon’s orders, students are instructed under the most rigid constraints. For example, take the question Champollion is asked:
What is the best form of government?
    A universal state like the one Napoleon is creating.
Everyone knows this answer. It is repeated often enough by every student—every student, that is, except for the brilliant yet stupid new scholarship boy. Jean François alone refuses to praise Napoleon when called upon in class. Even worse, he gives voice to his own opinions, quoting the classical authors on the tip of his tongue.
    Champollion!
    A long pause always follows after he is called upon, a silence that lasts forever, though he is self-assured intellectually. It is torture for him to speak in public. It is painful to fully emerge from his intense inner life. His mind, his consciousness is filled with sounds: First and foremost that is how he experiences the languages he studies. A torrent of sounds, soft or harsh, long or short, heavy or light, coming from the throat or the lips, rolled on the palate, or hissed from behind the teeth, combining and recombining like music. “If Arabic is the most beautiful of languages, then Persian is the sweetest, the Italian of the Orient.” Each language has a logic and a mystery all its own.
    Champollion!
    He stands awkwardly in his cracked shoes and the ill-fitting, secondhand uniform his brother bought him, facing the world: his twenty or so classmates.
    What is the best form of government?
    “The best form of government . . .” he begins, then pauses again. It is unbearable, excruciating. Taking his courage in his hands, he throws himself over the hurdle of his reticence, declaring as a shock goes through the room that he admires republics.
    Republics?
A few years before it would have been the correct answer, there would have been no other. As Talleyrand cynically remarks: “Treason is a matter of dates.” Now with Napoleon having assumed absolute power, such a response could cost Jean François his scholarship.
    Not giving this a thought, though, Champollion goes on to explain why he admires republics—especially the ancient Roman one. He recites Latin epigrams on freedom and lines from Greek poems. His answer is half absurd with its abstruse references—and half sublime. Finally the astonished teacher recollects himself and interrupts with another question: “And what about the glory Napoleon has brought France?”
    Again Jean François is ridiculous and sublime. Pale, struggling for breath—on the verge of fainting as is typical of him when he becomes excited—he quotes another classical author: “I love my country, but I love the truth more . . .”
    The reply silences the teacher, and earns Jean François two zeros amid shouts of laughter, one for history and one for impudent behavior.
    “There are certain incidents which affect the entire course of a student’s career in an academic institution,” Jacques tells his brother in a reproachful letter. “I have used all my savings and even so, I can barely pay half the costs of keeping you in the
lycée.
Without a scholarship, where would you be? I don’t mention the fact that your opinions will be attributed to me. And I don’t remind you that by your behavior . . .” But of course he
is
reminding him of what is at stake and he
is
mentioning every fact, every argument he can think of in his effort to make Jean François succeed.
    But Jean François is stubborn. He will not, perhaps cannot, give in.
    So the teachers quickly