d with what a
stately condescension did he make these slight acknowledgments!--what
haughtiness was there in the glance he threw around him! I have often
heard it said, and I have seen it also written, that previous to his
assumption of the crown, Bonaparte's manner exhibited the mean arts
and subtle devices of a candidate on the hustings, dispensing all the
flatteries and scattering all the promises that such occasions are so
prolific of. I cannot, of course, pretend to contradict this statement
positively; but I can record the impression which that scene made upon
me, as decidedly the opposite of this assumption. I have repeatedly seen
him since that event, but never do I remember his calm, cold features
more impassively stern, more proudly collected, than on that night.

Every allusion of the piece that could apply to him was eagerly caught
up. Not a phrase nor a chance word that could compliment, was passed
over in silence; and if greatness and glory were accorded, as if by an
instinctive reverence, the vast assemblage turned towards him, to lay
their homage at his feet. I watched him narrowly, and could see that he
received them all as his rightful tribute, the earnest of the debt the
nation owed him. Among the incidents of that night, I remember one which
actually for the moment convulsed the house with its enthusiasm. One of
the officers of his suite had somehow stumbled against Bonaparte's hat,
which, on entering, he had thrown carelessly beside his chair. Stooping
down and lifting it up, he perceived to whom it belonged, and then,
remarking the mark of a bullet on the edge, he showed it significantly
to a general near him. Slight and trivial as was the incident, it was
instantly caught up by the parterre. A low murmur ran quickly around;
and then a sudden cheer burst forth, for some one remembered it was
the anniversary of Marengo! And now the excitement became madness, and
reiterated shouts proclaimed that the glory of that day was among the
proudest memories of France. For once, and once only, did any trait of
feeling show itself on that impassive face. I thought I could mark even
a faint tinge of colour in that sallow cheek, as in recognition he bowed
a dignified salute to the waving and agitated assembly.

I saw that proud face, at moments when human ambition might have seemed
to have reached its limit, and yet never with a haughtier look than on
that night I speak of. His foot was already on the first step