gular about him. He was, she says, a coarse, chuckle-headed boyvery obstinate, and fierce when in a passion. The following anecdote Saveria related to the Duchess, which she said she heard from his own lips :

Napoleon, when scolded, or even chastised, never was known to cry, and even when punished, without being in the wrong, he offered no explanation. One of his sisters once accused him of eating a basket of grapes, figs and oranges, which were pulled in the garden of his uncle, the canon. You should have been intimately acquainted with the family to be able to estimate the magnitude of such a crime as that of clandestinely eating fruit from the garden of his uncle, the canon. To eat thus anybody else's fruit would not have been half so bad. There was forthwith a solemn investigation, and Napoleon being examined, denied the charge, for which he got well flogged. He was urged to confess his guilt, and that if he did so, he should be forgiven. He said he had already denied being guilty and was not believed, but was well chastised. I remember very well he told me that his mother was out on a visit at the time. The result was, that Napoleon was kept three whole days without any thing. whatever to eat, except a piece of bread and cheese, and the cheese none of the best either. However he never cried-he looked a little sorry, but showed no signs of displeasure. On the fourth day, a little girl, a friend of Marianne Buonaparte, returned from her father's grapery, and hearing what passed, she unhesitatingly confessed that it was she and Marianne who had dispatched the fruit. It was now Marianne's turn to be punished. Napoleon was asked why he did not mention his sister: he said he did not know that she was guilty, but in consideration of the candour with which his sister's young friend acted he should say nothing. This is very remarkable, for Napoleon was at the time only seven years old."'-pp. 51, 52.

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Another and more extended anecdote of the youth of Buonaparte is given by the Duchess on the authority of her mother :

"When she arrived at Paris my mother's first care was to inquire for Napoleon Buonaparte, who had but recently entered the military school in that metropolis, having previously studied at a school in Brienne. My uncle Demetrius met him the very day he arrived, and just after he had left the coach-' And truly' used my uncle to say, 'did he look like a new importation: I caught him at the Palais Royal gaping at the crows, turning his eyes on every side, and altogether having the appearance of one of those subjects whom a pickpocket would chuse for a victim.' My uncle inquired where he dined, and as he was not engaged he brought home the young traveller, for though my uncle was then but a young man, he was not lodging with a traiteur. (This was the title which those

persons went by, who now have that of restaurateur, which certainly was not introduced until several years after the period I speak of.) My uncle observed to my mother that she would find Napoleon very morose, and 'I am afraid,' he added, that the young man has a great deal more vanity than is suited to his circumstances. Whenever he comes to see me he declaims loudly against the luxury of his fellow students: he came sometime ago to speak to me of Mania, (in Greece), and the state of education

amongst the young Maniotes, particularly with reference to its resemblance to the ancient Spartan education, and all this he tells me is for a memoir which he intends to lay before the minister of war. Now this course will only get him embroiled with one of the students and perhaps cost him a thrust of a sword.' A few days only elapsed when my mother saw Napoleon, when his ill humour appeared to be very much excited. He allowed but few remarks, even those of an agreeable nature, and I am persuaded that it is on account of this irritability, which was ungovernable in him, that he obtained the reputation of having been gloomy and atrabilious in his infancy and boyhood. My father, who was acquainted with some of the masters of the school, used often to bring out Napoleon. On some pretext or another he was induced to remain at my father's for a week. Even now, whenever I walk on the Quai Conti, I invariably direct my eyes to a flat and round roof just at the left corner of a house, on the third floor, where Napoleon lodged during the time that he was on a visit with my friends. It was a neat little apartment, and my brother occupied the one next to it. They were both nearly of the same age: my brother perhaps was older by a year or fifteen months. My mother always recommended my brother to associate with Buonaparte: but after repeated attempts my brother found it impossible to put up with the cold civility or perhaps affectation with which he was treated by the other. He observed, as he thought, in Napoleon, a sort of acerbity and a bitter irony, which he was for a long time at a loss to account for. I really believe,' said Albert, one day to my mother, that the poor young fellow, keenly feels his dependant condition. But,' said my mother, it is not dependant, and I hope that you have not made him feel that he was with us.' My father, who was present, immediately observed to my mother, that Albert was not wrong in what he said, for that Napoleon was wholly influenced by a spirit of pride. I do not blame him,' continued my father, he knows you, he is aware that your family and his are in Corsica upon an equal footing with respect to fortune: he is the son of Letitia Buonaparte, as Albert is your son: I believe even you are relatives. All these considerations do not settle regularly in his brain, when he sees so immense a difference in the manner in which he is brought up as a free scholar (boursier), isolated and at a distance from his friends, and wanting all those attentions which are so amply bestowed on our children.' 'But,' rejoined my mother, it is not jealousy surely, that you are ascribing to him.' 'No,' replied my father, it is a very different thing from jealousy that this young man feels. I am too well acquainted with the human heart to mistake what is in his. He suffers, and in all probablity more in your house than elsewhere. You are kind, but you are not aware that misplaced attention is not always a remedy for trouble; when you used your interest to get young Napoleon to spend some days with you, I can tell you that you are doing very ill; you do not wish to believe me, and in your zeal on behalf of his mother, you place her son in a situation which must be painful to him, for the question must occur to him, "why is not my family like this?" You tease me,' said my mother; if he said that, he would be a foolish as well as a bad boy.' No,' added my father, neither foolish nor wicked' he would be only human. Why is it that he is in a constant passion all the time he has been in Paris? Why is he eternally exclaiming against the indecent luxury, these are his words, of his

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school-fellows? Because their circumstances are a permanent reproach as it were to his. He ridicules these young men for keeping servants, because he is not able to keep one himself: he thinks it wrong that there should be two services at meals, because when there are pic-nics amongst the boys he cannot contribute. In short, I was to see him, and I found him still more melancholy than usual. I was in doubt as to the cause, and I offered him a small sum, which perhaps he might want. He blushed deeply, his cheek then assumed its habitual yellow tinge, and he declined my proposal.' My mother observed that it was because my father made the offer in an awkward manner, for men are always very awkward. Well,' said my father, when I saw the young gentleman's spirit so particularly elevated, I trumped up a tale for which I have no doubt the Almighty will grant me his pardon. I told him that his father, who died in our arms at Montpellier, had placed at my disposal a small sum of money for the use of his son, which, however, was to be given to him only in small quantities when his necessities were very pressing. Napoleon looked at me with so scrutinizing an eye as almost to disconcert me.' 'Well, Sir,' said he, 'since this money really comes from my father, I will take it: but had this been in the nature of a loan, I would never have accepted it. My mother is already sufficiently burdened: it is not for me to increase that burden by adding to her expences, especially when they are to be incurred in consequence of the stupid folly of my fellow-students'' 'You see then,' concluded my father, that if his pride is so easily wounded by strangers at school, what must he suffer here, however tenderly we may treat him? Let, however, Albert continue to give his attentions, although I candidly confess my despair of seeing them end in an intimate intercourse of the parties." -pp. 76–81.

The manifestations of an impotent and dissatisfied spirit were almost of daily occurrence in the language and actions of young Buonaparte. Perhaps nothing in the book more strikingly exhibits the character of his mind than the following account. The writer relates that she was accompanying her father from St. Cyr, where he had been to see his sister, then at school in a convent, and that something had but just occurred to put the young man entirely out of temper.

When they had got upon the coach, Napoleon burst forth into all manner of invectives against the detestable administration which governed St. Cyr, but particularly the military schools. My uncle, who was rather warm, felt displeased at the bold and bitter tone of his companion, and he told him so. Napoleon was for a time silent, for that universal respect felt by boys for those more advanced would not permit him to proceed. But his heart was all the time bursting-he turned the conversation at length to the forbidden subject, and his language at length became so offensive that my uncle was forced to say-" Hold your tongue; it is no business of yours, brought up as you have been on the charity of the King, to speak as you do." My mother told me that she thought Napoleon would have been suffocated. In a moment his face became crimson. "I am not a charity boy of the King," replied Napoleon, in a voice trembling with emotion, "I have been educated at the expence of the state!" "A fine distinction, truly," observed my uncle, "but whether you were brought

up by King or state is of no consequence. Besides, is not the King the state? And I hope, at all events, that you would not speak in this manner of your benefactor, at least before me." "I shall say nothing, sir," answered Napoleon, "that may be unpleasant to you-but you will allow me to add, that if I were the master empowered to make the regulations, they should be very different from what they are-they should be for the benefit of all." In relating this conversation, I am only desirous of recording the words "If I were the master;" because Napoleon afterwards did become the master, and what he did for the management of the Military Schools is well known. I am quite satisfied that he retained for a considerable time the painful recollection of those humiliations which he was compelled to endure at the Military School at Paris.'-pp 109-111.

The Duchess indulges a great deal in political observations. She sketches in a vivid and striking manner some of the most extraordinary events of the famous revolution. Her characters, consisting for the most part of the chief men whom that unparalleled convulsion had thrown up from the chaos of society, are drawn with considerable power. She really seems to speak of persons and events with the greatest candour, and in general she is very happy and graceful, and certainly always entertaining, in her portraits. The remembrance of those scenes of horror which she witnessed in Paris, during the commencement of the revolution, when the more flagrant atrocities were perpetrated, seems to revive in her soul those emotions of terror with which the reality must have originally inspired her. She paints them in a most graphic manner; but without any apparent effort at dramatic effect. Indeed we may remark that little of affectation is in general to be met with in a French memoir. That species of intellectual exertion seems to be a national habit with our neighbours, and they acquit themselves in it naturally and mechanically, never supposing that any extraordinary endeavours are required. Hence, their execution in this branch of literature is quite unequalled, so that it would be next to impossible to detect, in the French language, a memoir that is even indifferent.

The Duchess gives us a very brilliant account of the clever but unfortunate Mirabeau, and she thinks him by far the most amply endowed man which the fermentation of the revolution produced. She adds a very curious account of an attempt which was made on the part of the Queen to buy over Mirabeau, when she found that he was, as a member of the states general, about to take a part against her. She couples his name also with an incident which she adduces, to confirm her notion that a fatality pursued the Bourbon race from about the middle of the last century. She says that the Queen resolved to bribe Mirabeau at least into silence, knowing that he avowed hostile intentions against her. An agent accordingly waited upon this gifted man with the usual instrument of corruption-plenty of money. But," says the noble authoress, and we cannot do less than quote her words.

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But on account of that ill luck which is inherent in every undertaking of the Bourbons, it so happened that this very man (Mirabeau) who never before had money, who was always in need, and continually dunned by his creditors who never had even enough for himself-it so happened that this man now had money, and that he was certain of having more. The truth is, that he refused the proffered bribe and bowed his visitor out of the room with a dignity full worthy of the elder of the Gracchi.'-p. 162. Well," adds the Countess in another place, "who can hope for success in the case of one that has been destined to misfortune? The question of fate, so long a subject of dispute, and still so little understood, may be greatly elucidated by a reference to those successive misfortunes which nothing can arrest. Whatever a particular person does, whatever he undertakes, the seal of ill luck is fixed to his destiny-and nothing can remove it. There it is-stuck, as it were, to the certificate, which misfortune has issued-its characters traced with a pen of iron. Against this fatal decree how vain is all the opposition which the ingenuity of man and the intensity of his desire to be happy can engender. Happy! what is it a man will not do to make himself happy? Is there any enterprize deemed insuperable which has a chance of conferring happiness? And yet what is the first expression of the crowd when there is presented before it an unhappy object which is calculated to excite its sympathy-" We must not grieve, he is the author of his own ruin-fool !-idiot!”—nay, often, the unhappy man is denounced as a criminal. This is meant particularly for the Bourbons-for it is impossible that any body could be influenced by a star more inauspiciously placed than that of the Bourbon race, since the middle of the last century, Countries there are no doubt where pity and sympathy would be felt for their calamities: but here, the bitterest inculpation is sure to fall upon the most insignificant of their acts. pp. 160, 161.

We return with pleasure to some of the anecdotes which Madame Junot relates of the early life of Napoleon.

It was in the spring of 1793, before repairing to Toulon, that BuonaTM parte, having obtained a furlough, made a journey to Corsica. He took up his residence, immediately on his arrival at Ajaccio, near the Porte-deMer, at an old countess's of the name of Rossi, a friend of his family. I cannot explain the reason of his not going to sojourn with his mother. However, there was a club established at the time outside the town, consisting of a great many orators, and Napoleon was an active member. The people of Ajaccio became alarmed at the influence of the club, and they formed another society, with many of the members of which I myself was acquainted. Amongst others, I knew a sea captain, whose ship was at the time in the roadstead, and who, by his intelligence and courage, and his well marked Breton head, was very well calculated to oppose the leaders of the original association, in case they thought of molesting the new club. The object of the latter was to preserve peace, and put down any disorders. The conduct of the first club appeared to be so opposed to the public tranquillity, as that a deputation from the rival body waited upon them to remonstrate and represent the injuries which they were doing to the quiet and order of the district. Our naval captain headed this deputation, which consisted only of himself and three other members of