been
dictated to us in such a fit of hastiness, we were careful, as far as
possible, not to present them for signing the same day. The next day,
they were almost always modified, softened, or torn. Napoleon was
never displeased with us, for endeavouring to guard him against the
dangers of precipitancy. They who think, that he never corrected a
false step, are mistaken: if under certain circumstances his
determinations were inflexible, in a number of others he yielded to
remonstrance, and relinquished his projects and resolves without
difficulty.

The Emperor seldom wrote with his own hand. Words of many syllables
were tedious to him; and, not having patience to write them at length,
he mutilated them. This habit, added to the defective formation of
his letters, rendered his writing altogether illegible. Frequently,
too, from carelessness, or absence of mind, he infringed the laws of
orthography; and people have not failed thence to infer, that he was
completely ignorant.

Most assuredly the ignorance of Napoleon, were it proved, would
detract nothing from his glory and renown. Charlemagne could scarcely
sign his own name. Louis XIV., and I quote him by choice, though born
on a throne, was unacquainted with _the rules of grammar_. Yet
Charlemagne and Louis were nevertheless great kings. The imputation,
however, is as false as it is absurd. Napoleon, educated at the school
of Brienne, was distinguished there by that facility of comprehension,
that disdain of pleasure, that fondness for study, that enthusiastic
regard for models of greatness, which commonly indicate superior
minds. Destined for the profession of arms, he would not aspire to
become a man of letters, a man of reading, a learned man: his object,
for he had an object in his earliest years, was to become some day a
distinguished officer, perhaps even a great captain. It was to the
military sciences, therefore, he bent his genius ... the universe
knows the rest.

But do I say his genius? the detractors of Napoleon also assert, that
his mind was too subject to irregularities, for the possession of
genius to be granted him: do they not know, or do they pretend to be
ignorant, that such irregularities are on the contrary the proof, the
distinguishing characteristics, of this precious gift of nature.

"Genius," says one of our philosophers, "rises and stoops by turns; it
is often imperfect, because it does not take the trouble to improve
itself. It is great in