fortune utterly
unaccountable."

But, while admitting that the personality and the fortune of Napoleon
were both alike surprising, Mr. Seeley contends that it is only the
accidental combination of both which has impressed and captivated the
imagination of mankind; and he believes that the separation of these
factors by a calm exercise of the judgment will greatly simplify the
problem and reduce the marvel of the great soldier's achievements. There
will, of course, be some divergence of opinion as to this, but it seems
to us that, on the whole, it is a judgment which subsequent historians
will be likely to accept without serious modifications. It can hardly be
called an absolutely impartial judgment. At no more than a distance of
seventy years from Waterloo, that was not in the nature of things
possible, if indeed it will ever be. The historian that would tell the
story of the French Revolution, and estimate the character and result
of Napoleon's military and political action, without bias or betrayal of
personal sympathy or antipathy, would be a most extraordinary person; he
could not be an Englishman; he could not be a Frenchman; he could not be
a German; he could scarcely be an American, for obvious reasons. Bearing
this in mind we cannot but think that Mr. Seeley has achieved
considerable success in the difficult task he has undertaken in the
later and more valuable portion of his book. Fully admitting, as he
does, Napoleon's extraordinary military talents, his astonishing
versatility and fruitfulness of resource, the promptitude, rapidity, and
unerring precision of his movements, Mr. Seeley maintains that what is
really marvellous is the remarkable combination of favorable
circumstances which at the outset furnished his field, and the equally
remarkable flow of good fortune which made him so successful in it.
Commenting on the brilliant victory of Marengo, which the professor
designates "his crowning victory," he says, "Genius is prodigally
displayed, and yet an immense margin is left for fortune." He points out
Napoleon's superstitious belief in his own unfailing good luck, and
shows how, by expecting results entirely unwarranted by the
probabilities, as at Leipsic, for instance, his strange hallucination
finally proved ruinous to himself and to France.

* * * * *

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