mass of the Memoirs. This has been done especially
where they deal with what the writer did not himself see or hear, the
part of the Memoirs which are of least valve and of which Marmont's
opinion has just been quoted. But in the personal and more valuable part
of the Memoirs, where we have the actual knowledge of the secretary
himself, the original text has been either fully retained, or some few
passages previously omitted restored. Illustrative notes have been added
from the Memoirs of the successor of Bourrienne, Meneval, Madame de
Remusat, the works of Colonel Iung on 'Bonaparte et Son Temps', and on
'Lucien Bonaparte', etc., and other books. Attention has also been paid
to the attacks of the 'Erreurs', and wherever these criticisms are more
than a mere expression of disagreement, their purport has been recorded
with, where possible, some judgment of the evidence. Thus the reader
will have before him the materials for deciding himself how far,
Bourrienne's statements are in agreement with the facts and with the
accounts of other writers.

At the present time too much attention has been paid to the Memoirs of
Madame de Remusat. She, as also Madame Junot, was the wife of a man on
whom the full shower of imperial favours did not descend, and, womanlike,
she saw and thought only of the Court life of the great man who was never
less great than in his Court. She is equally astonished and indignant
that the Emperor, coming straight from long hours of work with his
ministers and with his secretary, could not find soft words for the
ladies of the Court, and that, a horrible thing in the eyes of a
Frenchwoman, when a mistress threw herself into his arms, he first
thought of what political knowledge he could obtain from her.
Bourrienne, on the other hand, shows us the other and the really
important side of Napoleon's character. He tells us of the long hours in
the Cabinet, of the never-resting activity of the Consul, of Napoleon's
dreams, no ignoble dreams and often realised, of great labours of peace
as well as of war. He is a witness, and the more valuable as a reluctant
one, to the marvellous powers of the man who, if not the greatest, was at
least the one most fully endowed with every great quality of mind and
body the world has ever seen.

R. W. P.

AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION.

The trading upon an illustrious name can alone have given birth to the
multitude of publications under the titles of historical memoirs