Comprehensible? Maybe. Idiosyncratic? Certainly. Napoleon never stopped insisting on writing “j” (as in the French “je”) instead of “I”. Nonetheless his writerly confidence was growing. That same month he even played a joke on Las Cases in English. He anonymously sent to his teacher a review of one of his books, declaring it to be not without “somme fautes but you schal may corect them in the next edition.” Las Cases tells us (semi-plausibly) that he was completely taken in by his pupil's fraudulent review. And upon seeing the surprise and anger of his teacher, Napoleon began "splitting his sides laughing". But the teacher’s supposed anger soon softened: “I kept this letter safe: the happiness, the style and the circumstances make it more precious than any diploma which the Emperor could have given at the time of his power.”