after dinner the First Consul ascended to
Josephine's apartments, where he usually received the visits of the
ministers, and particularly that of the minister of foreign affairs, M.
de Talleyrand. At midnight, sometimes earlier, but never later, he gave
the signal for retiring by saying, brusquely: "Let us go to bed."

The next day, at seven in the morning, the same life began over again,
varied only by unforeseen incidents.

After these details of the personal habits of the great genius we are
trying to depict under his first aspect, his personal portrait ought, we
think, to come.

Bonaparte, First Consul, has left fewer indications of his personal
appearance than Napoleon, Emperor. Now, as nothing less resembles the
Emperor of 1812 than the First Consul of 1800; let us endeavor, if
possible, to sketch with a pen those features which the brush has never
fully portrayed, that countenance which neither bronze nor marble has
been able to render. Most of the painters and sculptors who flourished
during this illustrious period of art--Gros, David, Prud'hon, Girodet
and Bosio--have endeavored to transmit to posterity the features of
the Man of Destiny, at the different epochs when the vast providential
vistas which beckoned him first revealed themselves. Thus, we have
portraits of Bonaparte, commander-in-chief, Bonaparte, First Consul, and
Napoleon, Emperor; and although some painters and sculptors have caught
more or less successfully the type of his face, it may be said that
there does not exist, either of the general, the First Consul, or the
emperor, a single portrait or bust which perfectly resembles him.

It was not within the power of even genius to triumph over an
impossibility. During the first part of Bonaparte's life it was possible
to paint or chisel Bonaparte's protuberant skull, his brow furrowed
by the sublime line of thought, his pale elongated face, his granite
complexion, and the meditative character of his countenance. During
the second part of his life it was possible to paint or to chisel his
broadened forehead, his admirably defined eyebrows, his straight nose,
his close-pressed lips, his chin modelled with rare perfection, his
whole face, in short, like a coin of Augustus. But that which neither
his bust nor his portrait could render, which was utterly beyond the
domain of imitation, was the mobility of his look; that look which is to
man what the lightning is to God, namely, the proof of his divin