pears no good reason to doubt
its genuineness, and the truthfulness of many of its details is amply
supported by other authorities. Notwithstanding its excesses and
follies, the great French Revolution will ever have an absorbing interest
for mankind, because it began as a struggle for the advancement of the
cause of manhood, liberty, and equal rights. It was a terribly earnest
movement; and, after the lapse of a century, interest continues unabated
in the great soldier who restored order, and organized and preserved the
new ideas by means of his Civil Code and a firm government.

Countless memoirs have been published by those who lived in those heroic
times. Yet everything which will cast new light upon the chief actors in
that great drama of humanity is still seized upon with avidity,
especially whatever concerns the Emperor.

This is not merely because he was a great conqueror; for such were, after
their fashion, Genghis Khan and Timour, and hundreds of others. But it
is because of the human interest which attaches to the wonderful career
of Napoleon and the events of which he was the central figure.

Never did poet or novelist imagine scenes so improbable. The son of an
obscure lawyer in an unimportant island becomes Emperor of the French and
King of Italy. His brothers and sisters become kings and queens. The
sons of innkeepers, notaries; lawyers, and peasants become marshals of
the empire. The Emperor, first making a West India Creole his wife and
Empress, puts her away, and marries a daughter of the haughtiest and
oldest royal house in Europe, the niece of a queen whom the people of
France had beheaded a few years before. Their son is born a king--King
of Rome. Then suddenly the pageantry dissolves, and Emperor, kings, and
queens become subjects again. Has imagination ever dreamed anything
wilder than this? The dramatic interest of this story will always
attract, but there is a deeper one. The secret spring of all those rapid
changes, and the real cause of the great interest humanity will always
feel in the story of those eventful times, is to be found in Napoleon's
own explanation--"A career open to talents, without distinction of
birth." Till that day the accident of birth was the key to every honor
and every position. No man could hold even a lieutenancy in the army who
could not show four quarterings on his coat of arms.

It was as the "armed apostle of democracy" that Napoleon went forth
conquering and to