The inveterate intention of the reigning family was to obliterate every mark that bore the impress of Napoleon.  Wherever the initial of his name had been inserted on the public edifices, it was carefully erased; his statues were broken or removed; prints of him could not be exposed for sale; and it appeared to be their fixed determination to drive him from men’s memories.  But he had left mementos which jealousy could not conceal nor petty malice destroy.  His Code was still the law of the land; the monuments of his genius were thickly scattered wherever his dominion had extended; his mighty name was on every tongue; and as time mellowed the remembrance of him, the good he had done survived and the evil was forgotten or extenuated.

Whoever would judge this man should consider the times which produced him and the fearful authority he wielded.  He came to take his place among the rulers of the earth, while she was rocking with convulsions, seeking regeneration through the baptism of blood.  He came as a connecting link between anarchy and order, an agent of destiny to act his part in the great tragedy of revolution, the end of which is not yet.  His mission was to give a lesson to sovereigns and people, to humble hereditary power, and to prove by his own career the unsubstantial character of a government which deludes the popular will that creates it.  During his captivity, he understood the true causes of his overthrow, and talked of them with an intelligence which misfortune had saddened down into philosophy.  He saw that the secret of his reverses was not to be found in the banded confederacy of kings, but in the forfeited sympathy of the great masses of men, who felt with him, and moved with him, and bade him God-speed, until he abandoned the distinctive principle which advanced him, and relinquished their affection for royal affiances and the doubtful friendship of monarchs.  His better nature was laid aside, his common sense became merged in court etiquette, he sacrificed his conscience to his ambition, and the Man was forgotten in the Emperor.

It is creditable to the world, that his divorce did more, perhaps, than anything else to alienate the respect and attachment of mankind; and many who could find excuses for his gravest public misdeeds can never forgive this impiety to the household gods.

I was most forcibly impressed with the relation between him and Josephine, in a visit I made to Malmaison a short time subsequent to her death, which occurred soon after his first abdication.  It was the place where they had lived together, before the imperial diadem had seared his brain; and it was the chosen spot of her retreat, when he, “the conqueror of kings, sank to the degradation of courting their alliance.”  The house was as she left it.  Not a thing had been moved, the servants were still there, and the order and comfort of the establishment were as though her return were momently expected.  The plants she loved were carefully tended, and her