portance the works of MM. Aulard, Chuquet, Houssaye, Sorel, and
Vandal in France; of Herren Beer, Delbrueck, Fournier, Lehmann, Oncken,
and Wertheimer in Germany and Austria; and of Baron Lumbroso in Italy.
I have also profited largely by the scholarly monographs or
collections of documents due to the labours of the "Societe d'Histoire
Contemporaine," the General Staff of the French Army, of MM. Bouvier,
Caudrillier, Capitaine "J.G.," Levy, Madelin, Sagnac, Sciout, Zivy,
and others in France; and of Herren Bailleu, Demelitsch, Hansing,
Klinkowstrom, Luckwaldt, Ulmann, and others in Germany. Some of the
recently published French Memoirs dealing with those times are not
devoid of value, though this class of literature is to be used with
caution. The new letters of Napoleon published by M. Leon Lecestre and
M. Leonce de Brotonne have also opened up fresh vistas into the life
of the great man; and the time seems to have come when we may safely
revise our judgments on many of its episodes.

But I should not have ventured on this great undertaking, had I not
been able to contribute something new to Napoleonic literature. During
a study of this period for an earlier work published in the "Cambridge
Historical Series," I ascertained the great value of the British
records for the years 1795-1815. It is surely discreditable to our
historical research that, apart from the fruitful labours of the Navy
Records Society, of Messrs. Oscar Browning and Hereford George, and of
Mr. Bowman of Toronto, scarcely any English work has appeared that is
based on the official records of this period. Yet they are of great
interest and value. Our diplomatic agents then had the knack of
getting at State secrets in most foreign capitals, even when we were
at war with their Governments; and our War Office and Admiralty
Records have also yielded me some interesting "finds." M. Levy, in the
preface to his "Napoleon intime" (1893), has well remarked that "the
documentary history of the wars of the Empire has not yet been
written. To write it accurately, it will be more important thoroughly
to know foreign archives than those of France." Those of Russia,
Austria, and Prussia have now for the most part been examined; and I
think that I may claim to have searched all the important parts of our
Foreign Office Archives for the years in question, as well as for part
of the St. Helena period. I have striven to embody the results of this
search in the present vo