le he was being shaved, a secretary or an aide-de-camp read the
newspapers aloud, always beginning with the "Moniteur." He gave no real
attention to any but the English and German papers.

"Skip that," he would say when they read him the French papers; "_I know
what they say, because they only say what I choose._"

His toilet completed, Bonaparte went down to his study. We have seen
above what he did there. At ten o'clock the breakfast as announced,
usually by the steward, in these words: "The general is served." No
title, it will be observed, not even that of First Consul.

The repast was a frugal one. Every morning a dish was served which
Bonaparte particularly liked--a chicken fried in oil with garlic;
the same dish that is now called on the bills of fare at restaurants
"Chicken a la Marengo."

Bonaparte drank little, and then only Bordeaux or Burgundy, preferably
the latter. After breakfast, as after dinner, he drank a cup of black
coffee; never between meals. When he chanced to work until late at
night they brought him, not coffee, but chocolate, and the secretary who
worked with him had a cup of the same. Most historians, narrators, and
biographers, after saying that Bonaparte drank a great deal of coffee,
add that he took snuff to excess.

They are doubly mistaken. From the time he was twenty-four, Bonaparte
had contracted the habit of taking snuff: but only enough to keep his
brain awake. He took it habitually, not, as biographers have declared,
from the pocket of his waistcoat, but from a snuff-box which he changed
almost every day for a new one--having in this matter of collecting
snuff-boxes a certain resemblance to the great Frederick. If he ever did
take snuff from his waistcoat pocket, it was on his battle days, when it
would have been difficult, while riding at a gallop under fire, to hold
both reins and snuff-box. For those days he had special waistcoats, with
the right-hand pocket lined with perfumed leather; and, as the sloping
cut of his coat enabled him to insert his thumb and forefinger into this
pocket without unbuttoning his coat, he could, under any circumstances
and at any gait, take snuff when he pleased.

As general or First Consul, he never wore gloves, contenting himself
with holding and crumpling them in his left hand. As Emperor, there was
some advance in this propriety; he wore one glove, and as he changed his
gloves, not once, but two or three times a day, his valet adopted the
hab