at no man could discuss
him or his time without manifesting such strong personal feeling as to
vitiate his judgment and conclusions. This was partly due to the lack
of perspective, but in the main to ignorance of the facts essential to
a sober treatment of the theme. In this respect the last quarter of a
century has seen a gradual but radical change, for a band of
dispassionate scientific scholars have during that time been occupied
in the preparation of material for his life without reference to the
advocacy of one theory or another concerning his character. European
archives, long carefully guarded, have been thrown open; the
diplomatic correspondence of the most important periods has been
published; family papers have been examined, and numbers of valuable
memoirs have been printed. It has therefore been possible to check one
account by another, to cancel misrepresentations, to eliminate
passion--in short, to establish something like correct outline and
accurate detail, at least in regard to what the man actually did.
Those hidden secrets of any human mind which we call motives must ever
remain to other minds largely a matter of opinion, but a very fair
indication of them can be found when once the actual conduct of the
actor has been determined.

This investigation has mainly been the work of specialists, and its
results have been published in monographs and technical journals; most
of these workers, moreover, were continental scholars writing each in
his own language. Its results, as a whole, have therefore not been
accessible to the general reader in either America or England. It
seems highly desirable that they should be made so, and this has been
the effort of the writer. At the same time he claims to be an
independent investigator in some of the most important portions of the
field he covers. His researches have extended over many years, and it
has been his privilege to use original materials which, as far as he
knows, have not been used by others. At the close of the book will be
found a short account of the papers of Bonaparte's boyhood and youth
which the author has read, and of the portions of the French and
English archives which were generously put at his disposal, together
with a short though reasonably complete bibliography of the published
books and papers which really have scientific value. The number of
volumes concerned with Napoleon and his epoch is enormous; outside of
those mentioned very few ha