Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1845. Excerpt:... CHAPTER XXI. My task is done--Would it were worthier! CONCLUDING CHAPTER. In concluding my brief record of Napoleon, I will spare my readers any lengthened expression of my own opinion of his character. I have placed before them the greater part of what occurred while I was in his society, and have thus given them, as far as I am able, the same means of judging of him as I myself possess. But yet, in a personal intercourse, incidents occur, of too trivial or subtle a nature to be communicated to others, but which are still the truest indications of character, from being the result of impulse, and unpremeditated. Even a look, a tone of the voice, a gesture, in an unreserved moment, will give an insight into the real disposition which years of a more formal intercourse would fail to convey; and this is particularly the case in the association of a person of mature age with very young people. There is generally a confiding candour and openness about them which invites confidence in return, and which tempts a man of the world to throw off the iron mask of reserve and caution, and to assume once more the simplicity of a little child. This, at least, took place in my intercourse with Napoleon, and I may therefore perhaps venture to say a few words on the general impression he left on my mind after three months" daily communication with him. The point of character which has, more than any other, been a subject of dispute between Napoleon's friends and his enemies, and which will ever be the most important of all, in the estimation of a woman, is, whether he furnished another proof of the "close affinity between superlative intellect and the warmth of the generous affections," (to use the words of the Rev.--Crabbe, in his delightful Life of his Father,) or whethe...