in telling him the truth.'-'Ah, what a failure said he; but I have not to reproach myself with not having foretold it.'

'I hurried out, and arrived at the hotel about half past one o'clock. A few Polish gens d'armes guarded the gate; the master of the hotel examined me; hesitated a little, and then allowed me to pass. I saw a small carriage body placed on a sledge made of four pieces of fir; it had stood some crashes, and was much damaged. Two open sledges there had served for the conveyance of general Lefebvre Desnouettes, another officer, the Mameluke Roustan, and a valet. This was all that remained of so much grandeur and magnificence. I thought I beheld the winding-sheet carried before the great Saladin. The door of a room on the ground-floor was mysteriously opened. A short parley took place; the duke of Vicenza came, introduced me to the emperor, and left me with him. He was in a cold small lower apartment, and had the window-shutters half closed, the better to conceal his incognito. An awkward Polish servant continued blowing a fire of green wood which, resisting her efforts, diffused far more water over the stove than heat in the apartment. The emperor, according to his custom, was walking about, wrapped up in a superb pelisse lined with green, and with magnificent gold brandenburghs. He had on a kind of fur cap, and his boots were also surrounded with fur. Ah, Monsieur the ambassador,' said he, smiling—I approached, and addressed him thus: You look well: you have made me very uneasy; but at length you are here: I am happy to see you.'-'How are you off in this country?' said he. I described to him the actual state of the duchy. I urged on the ground of prudence, the dignity of the emperor and the confederation, the quiet removal of the embassy and the council before the arrival of the enemy; spoke to him of the distress of the duchy and the Poles He asked with vivacity, Who has ruined them?' I replied, 'What has been doing for these six years: the scarcity of last year, and the continental system deprive them of all commerce.' At these words his eyes were lighted up. He proceeded, Where are the Russians? I told him-'And the Austrians?'

·

I have not heard of them for a fortnight.''General Reynier? Nor of him neither.'-I spoke to him of the Polish army. 'I have seen none of them,' said he, during the campaign.'I explained the reason of that, and why the dispersion of the Polish forces had at last rendered an army of 82,000 men invisible. What do the Poles want?-To be Prussians, if they cannot be Poles. And why not Russians? replied he, with an air of irritation. He said, 'we must raise 10,000 Cossacks: a lance and a horse are sufficient for them-with that force the Russians may be stopped.'

Soon after he dismissed me, recommending to bring after dinner count Stanislaus Potocki and the minister of finance, two members possessing most credit in the council. This interview lasted about a quarter of an hour, during which, as usual, he walked about with much agitation, and sometimes fell into a profound reverie. We met again at the hotel D'Angleterre

at three o'clock; he had just risen from table.-'How long have I been in Warsaw ?—Eight days-No, only two hours;' said he, smiling, without any preamble or preparation, from the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step.''How do you do, Mr. Stanislaus, and you, Mr. Minister of the Finances?'-On these gentlemen repeatedly expressing their satisfaction on seeing him well after so many dangers, he replied, Dangers! Not the least-Agitation is life to me: the more trouble I have the better I am. None but sluggard kings fatten in their palaces. Horseback and camps for me.' From the sublime to the ridiculous there is only a step. It was plain then that he considered himself an object for the derision of all Europe, and this idea was to him the greatest of all punishments. He said, 'You are very much alarmed here.'-'It is because we only know what public rumor informs us.'-' Bah! the army is superb. I have 120,000 men: I always beat the Russians. They are no longer the soldiers of Friedland and Eylau. I am going to raise 300,000 men. Success will render the Russians rash. I shall give them three or four battles in the Oder, and in six months I shall be again on the Niemen. I am more wanting on the throne than in my army. I leave it with regret. All that has happened is nothing; it is a misfortune; it is the effect of climate. The enemy is good for nothing: I beat him every where. They wished to cut me off at the Berezina-—I laughed at that fool of an admiral Tchitzchagoff.'

'He added a good deal on strong and feeble minds, and mostly all that was inserted in the 29th bulletin. He then proceeded-'It used to be otherwise. At Marengo I was beaten till six in the evening: at Essling I was master of Austria: that archduke thought to stop me; but I could not prevent the Danube from rising sixteen feet in one night. Ah! if it had not been for that, the Austrian monarchy was ended; but it was written in heaven, that I should marry an archduchess.-[This was said with an air of great gaiety]-It has been the same with Russia: I could not prevent the frost: I was told every morning that I had lost 10,000 horses during the night. Well! bon voyage. This was repeated five or six times. Our Norman horses are not so hardy as the Russian horses. It is the same with the men. Perhaps it will be said, I stopped too long at Moscow; but it may be so; the weather was good. I expected peace. I sent Lauriston with an overture. I thought of going to Petersburgh. We will maintain ourselves at Wilna. I have left the king of Naples there; ah! ah ! what a grand political scheme. He who risks nothing gains nothing. From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step.'-He then got into a rambling discourse, which continued for three hours; the fire had gone out, and every one but the emperor felt the effects of the cold: he seemed to keep himself warm by his vehement utterance. At length, when the minister joined with the ambassador in addressing to him the most respectful and affectionate wishes for the preservation of his health and the prosperity of his journey, he replied, 'I never was better; if I carried the devil with me I should be all the

cies, not by their talents but by their virtues; and when superior philanthropy and goodness shall be the only passport to glory and renown-then will the names of Buonaparte, of Alexander, and of Cæsar, be associated in one common infamy.

Dr. Channing of America, whose analysis of the character of Buonaparte we have liberally used in the preceding memoir, thus traces the great outline:- His intellect was distinguished by rapidity of thought. He understood, by a glance, what most men, and superior men, could learn only by study. He darted to a conclusion rather by intuition than reasoning. In war, which was the only subject of which he was master, he seized in an instant on the great points of his own and his enemy's positions: and combined at once the movements by which an overpowering force might be thrown with unexpected fury on a vulnerable part of the hostile line, and the fate of an army be decided in a day. He understood war as a science; but his mind was too bold, rapid, and irrepressible, to be enslaved by the technics of his profession. He found the old armies fighting by rule, and he discovered the true character of genius, which, without despising rules, knows when and how to break them. He understood thoroughly the immense moral power which is gained by originality and rapidity of operation. He astonished and paralysed his enemies by his unforeseen and impetuous assaults, by the suddenness with which the storm of battle burst upon them; and, whilst giving to his soldiers the advantages of modern discipline, breathed into them, by his quick and decisive movements, the enthusiasm of ruder ages. This power of disheartening the foe, and of spreading through his own ranks a confidence, and exhilarating courage, which made war a pastime, and seemed to make victory sure, distinguished Napoleon in an age of uncommon military talent, and was one main instrument of his future power.

The wonderful effects of that rapidity of thought by which Buonaparte was marked, the signal success of his new mode of warfare, and the almost incredible speed with which his fame was spread through nations, had no small agency in fixing his character, and determining for a period the fate of empires. These stirring influences infused a new consciousness of his own might. They gave intensity and audacity to his ambition; gave form and substance to his indefinite visions of glory; and raised his fiery hopes to empire. The burst of admiration, which his early career called forth, must in particular have had an influence in imparting to his ambition that modification by which it was characterised, and which contributed alike to its success and to its fall. He began with astonishing the world; with producing a sudden and universal sensation, such as modern times had not witnessed. To astonish, as well as to sway, by his energies, became the great aim of his life. Henceforth to rule was not enough for Buonaparte. He wanted to amaze, to dazzle, to overpower men's souls by striking, bold, magnificent, and unanticipated results. To govern ever so absolutely would not have satisfied him, if he must have governed silently. He wanted to reign through

wonder and awe, by the grandeur and terror of his name, by displays of power which would rivet on him every eye, and make him the theme of every tongue. Power was his supreme object, but a power which should be gazed at as well as felt, which should strike men as a prodigy, which should shake old thrones as an earthquake, and, by the suddenness of its new creations, should awaken something of the submissive wonder which miraculous agency inspires.

Such seems to us to have been the distinction, or characteristic modification, of his love of fame. It was a diseased passion for a kind of admiration, which, from the principles of our nature, cannot be enduring, and which demands for its support perpetual and more stimulating novelty. Mere esteem he would have scorned. Calm admiration, though universal and enduring, would have been insipid. He wanted to electrify and overwhelm. He lived for effect. The world was his theatre, and he cared little what part he played, if he might walk the sole hero on the stage, and call forth bursts of applause, which would silence all other fame. In war the triumphs which he coveted were those in which he seemed to sweep away his foes like a whirlwind; and the immense and unparalleled sacrifice of his own soldiers, in the rapid marches and daring assaults to which he owed his victories, in no degree diminished their worth to the victor. In peace he delighted to hurry through his dominions; to multiply himself by his rapid movements; to gather at a glance the capacities of improvement which every important place possessed; to suggest plans which would startle by their originality and vastness; to project in an instant works which a life could not accomplish, and to leave behind the impression of a superhuman energy.

Our sketch of Buonaparte would be imperfect indeed, if we did not add, that he was characterised by nothing more strongly than by the spirit of self-exaggeration. The singular energy of his intellect and will, through which he had mastered so many rivals and foes, and overcome what seemed insuperable obstacles, inspired a consciousness of being something more than man. His strong original tendencies to pride and self-exaltation, fed and pampered by strange success and unbounded applause, swelled into an almost insane conviction of superhuman greatness. In his own view he stood apart from other men. He was not to be measured by the standard of humanity. He was not to be retarded by difficulties to which all others yielded. He was not to be subjected to laws and obligations which all others were expected to obey. Nature and the human will were to bend to his power. He was the child and favorite of fortune, and, if not the lord, the chief object of destiny. His history shows a spirit of selfexaggeration, unrivalled in enlightened ages, and which reminds us of an oriental king to whom incense had been burnt from his birth as to a deity. This was the chief source of his crimes. He wanted the sentiment of a common nature with his fellow beings. He had no sympathies with his race. That feeling of brotherhood which is developed in truly great souls with pe

culiar energy, and through which they give up themselves willing victims, joyful sacrifices, to the interests of mankind, was wholly unknown to him. His heart, amidst all its wild beatings, never had one throb of distinterested love. The ties which bind man to man he broke asunder. The proper happiness of a man, which consists in the victory of moral energy and social affection over the selfish passions, he cast away for the lonely joy of a despot. With powers which might have made him a glorious representative and minister of the beneficent Divinity, and with natural sensibilities which might have been exalted into sublime virtues, he chose to separate himself from his kind, to forego their love, esteem, and gratitude, that he might become their gaze, their fear, their wonder; and for this selfish, solitary good, parted with peace and imperishable renown.

This insolent exaltation of himself, above the race to which he belonged, broke out in the beginning of his career. His first success in Italy gave him the tone of a master, and he never laid it aside to his last hour. One can hardly help being struck with the natural manner with which he arrogates supremacy in his conversation and proclamations. We never feel as if he were putting on a lordly air, or borrowing an imperious tone. In his proudest claims he speaks from his own mind, and in native language. His style is swollen, but never strained, as if he were conscious of playing a part above his real claims. Even when he was foolish and impious enough to arrogate miraculous powers, and a mission from God, his language showed that he thought there was something in his character and exploits to give a color to his blasphemous pretensions. The empire of the world seemed to him to be in a measure his due, for nothing short of it corresponded with his conceptions of himself; and he did not use mere verbiage, but spoke a language to which he gave some credit, when he called his successive conquests the fulfilment of his destiny.'

This spirit of self-exaggeration wrought its own misery, and drew down upon him terrible punishments; and this it did by vitiating and perverting his high powers. First, it diseased his fine intellect, gave imagination the ascendancy over judgment, turned the inventiveness and fruitfulness of his mind into rash, impatient, restless energies, and thus precipitated him into projects, which, as the wisdom of his counsellors pronounced, were fraught with ruin. To a man whose vanity took him out of the rank of human beings, no foundation for reasoning was left. All things seemed possible. His genius and his fortune were not to be bounded by the barriers which experience had assigned to human powers. Ordinary rules did not apply to him. His imagination, disordered by his egotism, and by unbounded flattery, leaped over appalling obstacles to the prize which inflamed his ambition. He even found excitement and motives in obstacles, before which other men would have wavered; for these would enhance the glory of triumph, and give a new thrill to the admiration of the world. Accordingly he again and again plunged into the depths of an enemy's country,

and staked his whole fortune and power on a single battle. To be rash was indeed the neces sary result of his self-exalting and self-relying spirit; for to dare what no other man would dare, to accomplish what no other man would attempt, was the very way to display himself as a superior being in his own and others' eyes. To be impatient and restless was another necessary issue of the attributes we have described. The calmness of wisdom was denied him. He who was next to omnipotent in his own eyes, and who delighted to strike and astonish by sudden and conspicuous operations, could not brook delay, or wait for the slow operations of time. A work which was to be gradually matured, by the joint agency of various causes, could not suit a man who wanted to be felt as the great, perhaps only, cause; who wished to stamp his own agency in the most glaring characters on whatever he performed; and who hoped to rival by a sudden energy the steady and progressive works of nature. Hence so many of his projects were never completed, or only announced. They swelled, however, the tide of flattery, which ascribed to him the completion of what was not yet begun ; whilst his restless spirit, rushing to new enterprises, forgot its pledges, and left the promised prodigies of his creative genius to exist only in the records of adulation. Thus the rapid and inventive intellect of Buonaparte was depraved, and failed to achieve a growing and durable greatness, through his self-exagge rating spirit. It reared indeed a vast and imposing structure, but disproportioned, dis jointed, without strength, without foundations. One strong blast was enough to shake and shatter it; nor could his genius uphold it. Happywould it have been for his fame, had he been buried in its ruins.

One of the striking properties of Buonaparte's character was decision; and this, as we have already seen, was perverted, by the spirit of self-exaggeration into an inflexible stubborness, which counsel could not enlighten, nor circumstances bend. Having taken the first step, he pressed onward. His purpose he wished others to regard as a law of nature, or a decree of destiny. It must be accomplished. Resistance but strengthened it; and so often had resistance been overborne, that he felt as if his unconquerable will, joined to his matchless intellect, could vanquish all things. On such a mind the warnings of human wisdom and of Providence were spent in vain; and the man of destiny lived to teach others, if not himself, the weakness and folly of that all-defying decision, which arrays the purposes of a mortal with the immutableness of the counsels of the Most High.

A still more fatal influence of the spirit of self-exaggeration which characterised Buonaparte remains to be named. It depraved to an extraordinary degree his moral sense. It did not obliterate altogether the ideas of duty, but, by a singular perversion, it impelled him to apply them exclusively to others. It never seemed to enter his thought that he was subject to the great obligations of morality, which all others are called to respect. He was an exempted being. Whatever stood in his way to empire