Most celebrated people lose on a close view
Necessary to let men and things take their course
Nothing is changed in France: there is only one Frenchman more
Put some gold lace on the coats of my virtuous republicans
Religion is useful to the Government
Rights of misfortune are always sacred
Something so seductive in popular enthusiasm
Strike their imaginations by absurdities than by rational ideas
Submit to events, that he might appear to command them
Tendency to sell the skin of the bear before killing him
That consolation which is always left to the discontented
The boudoir was often stronger than the cabinet
The wish and the reality were to him one and the same thing
Those who are free from common prejudices acquire others
To leave behind him no traces of his existence
Treaties of peace no less disastrous than the wars
Treaty, according to custom, was called perpetual
Trifles honoured with too much attention
Were made friends of lest they should become enemies
When a man has so much money he cannot have got it honestly
Would enact the more in proportion as we yield
Yield to illusion when the truth was not satisfactory

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PRIVATE LIFE OF NAPOLEON, Complete

By CONSTANT

PREMIER VALET DE CHAMBRE

TRANSLATED BY WALTER CLARK

1895

PREFACE.

Though this work was first published in 1830, it has never before been
translated into English. Indeed, the volumes are almost out of print.
When in Paris a few years ago the writer secured, with much difficulty,
a copy, from which this translation has been made. Notes have been added
by the translator, and illustrations by the publishers, which, it is
believed, will enhance the interest of the original work by Constant.

"To paint Caesar in undress is not to paint Caesar," some one has said.
Yet men will always like to see the great 'en deshabille'. In these
volumes the hero is painted in undress. His foibles, his peculiarities,
his vices, are here depicted without reserve. But so also are his
kindness of heart, his vast intellect, his knowledge of men, his
extraordinary energy, his public spirit. The shutters are taken down,
and the workings of the mighty machinery are laid bare.

The late Prince Napoleon (who was more truly "the nephew of his uncle"
than was Napoleon III.), in his Napoleon and His Detractors, bitterly
assails this work of Constants attacking both its authenticity and the
correctness of its statements. But there ap