ity.

In Bonaparte, that look obeyed his will with the rapidity of lightning;
in one and the same minute it dared from beneath his eyelids, now keen
and piercing as the blade of a dagger violently unsheathed, now soft as
a sun ray or a kiss, now stern as a challenge, or terrible as a threat.

Bonaparte had a look for every thought that stirred his soul. In
Napoleon, this look, except in the momentous circumstances of his life,
ceased to be mobile and became fixed, but even so it was none the less
impossible to render; it was a drill sounding the heart of whosoever he
looked upon, the deepest, the most secret thought of which he meant to
sound. Marble or painting might render the fixedness of that look, but
neither the one nor the other could portray its life--that is to say,
its penetrating and magnetic action. Troubled hearts have veiled eyes.

Bonaparte, even in the days of his leanness, had beautiful hands, and
he displayed them with a certain coquetry. As he grew stouter his hands
became superb; he took the utmost care of them, and looked at them when
talking, with much complacency. He felt the same satisfaction in his
teeth, which were handsome, though not with the splendor of his hands.

When he walked, either alone or with some one, whether in a room or in
a garden, he always bent a little forward, as though his head were heavy
to carry, and crossed his hands behind his back. He frequently made an
involuntary movement with the right shoulder, as if a nervous shudder
had passed through it, and at the same time his mouth made a curious
movement from right to left, which seemed to result from the other.
These movements, however, had nothing convulsive about them, whatever
may have been said notwithstanding; they were a simple trick indicative
of great preoccupation, a sort of congestion of the mind. It was chiefly
manifested when the general, the First Consul, or the Emperor, was
maturing vast plans. It was after such promenades, accompanied by this
twofold movement of the shoulders and lips, that he dictated his most
important notes. On a campaign, with the army, on horseback, he was
indefatigable; he was almost as much so in ordinary life, and would
often walk five or six hours in succession without perceiving it.

When he walked thus with some one with whom he was familiar, he commonly
passed his arm through that or his companion and leaned upon him.

Slender and thin as he was at the period when we place him