, _La Promenade_.)[1]

_Napoleon, apres son expedition de Livourne, se rendant a
Florence, coucha a San Miniato chez un vieil abbe Buonaparte...._

(_Memorial de Saint-Helene_, par le comte de Las Cases, reimpression
de 1823, 1824, t. I'er, p. 149.)[2]

"_Je fus sur le soir a San Miniato. J'y avais un vieux
chanoine de parent...._"

(_Memoires du docteur F. Antommarchi, sur les derniers moments de
Napoleon_ 1825, t. I'er p. 155.)[3]

[Footnote 1: "When, a plain citizen, soldier of a free people, by the
banks of the Eridanus, the Adige and the Tiber, blasting with his
lightnings one after another recalcitrant tyrants, his hand brake the
fetters of the nations that wept...."]

[Footnote 2: "Napoleon, visiting Florence after his Leghorn expedition,
lay one night at San Miniato at the house of an old Abbe Buonaparte...."
(_Memorial of St. Helena_, by the Count de Las Cases--reprint of 1823,
1824, Vol. I, p. 149.)]

[Footnote 3: "I stayed for the night at San Miniato. I had a relative
living there, an old Canon...." (_Memoirs of Dr. F. Antommarchi on the
Last Moments of Napoleon_, 1825, vol. I, p. 155.)]

After occupying Leghorn and closing that port against the English
men-of-war, General Bonaparte proceeded to Florence to visit the Grand
Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand, who alone of all the princes of Europe had
honestly and honourably fulfilled his engagements with the French
Republic. In token of esteem and confidence, he went there without
escort, accompanied only by the officers of his Staff. Amongst other
sights he was shown the arms of the Buonapartes carved over the gateway
of an old house. He was already aware that a branch of his family had
been fruitful and multiplied at Florence in days of yore, and that a
last descendant of this the ancient race was still alive. This was a
certain Canon of San Miniato, now eighty years of age. In spite of all
the pressing affairs he had to attend to, he made a point of paying him
a visit. Napoleon Bonaparte was always strongly moved by feelings of
natural affection.

On the eve of his departure from Florence, he made his way with some of
his officers to the hill of San Miniato, which crowned with its walls
and towers, rises from the plain at half a league's distance from the
city.

Old Canon Buonaparte welcomed with agreeable and dignified politeness
his young kinsman and the French officers who accompanied him--Berthier,
Junot, Orderly Officer in Chie