found their way eventually into the Bodleian-£200 and £300 having been in the meanwhile paid by the Earl of Hardwicke and Mr. M'Pherson for the perusal of them. They have been largely used by later historians, often without acknowledgment. Hume used Carte's History extensively, and gave him little thanks.1 Warton, however, opines that we go to Hume for eloquence, but to Carte for facts.

A small, mean-looking man, Carte was a prodigious and a cheerful worker, and, like Rapin, could tire out any ordinary mortal at a day's literary labour. He was a strenuous pleader for more public libraries in England.

1 Not the least charm of the copy of Carte's History in the London Library is that it was Carlyle's copy, with his characteristic notes in the margins.

"The best anecdote I have seen of Napoleon. The Emperor of Austria, in reply to some remonstrance against the marriage, said he should not have consented to it had he not known that Bonaparte's origin was as noble as his own. A collection of documents, therefore, was presented to Bonaparte, proving that his ancestors had been Dukes of Treviso. He threw them into the fire, saying, 'Je veux que ma noblesse ne date que de moi, et ne tenir mes titres que du peuple français. " SOUTHEY, "Commonplace Book," vol. iii.

NAPOLEON'S NOTES ON

ENGLISH HISTORY

PART I

NAPOLEON'S NOTE-BOOKS

THREE-QUARTERS of a century ago two of the great writers of the nineteenth century girded themselves to pen the life of their greatest contemporary-the Emperor Napoleon I. Sir Walter Scott, who, after thirteen years' silence, had been compelled by financial stress to cast off his cloak of darkness visible, and to avow the authorship of the Waverley novels, worked as he had never worked before, for he was toiling for faith and freedom ; for the maintenance of political faith by trying to convince himself and his readers that a Tory dispensation was perfect, and that even the Bourbons were a blessing; and for the financial freedom which the £18,000 promised by Messrs. Longmans would materially facilitate. The task of refuting the nine volumes of the author of Waverley fell to William Hazlitt, the John Ruskin of his day, who brought to bear the ardent artistic temperament of an advanced Liberal, together with perhaps the most perfect prose style in the whole realm of English literature. The failure of his publishers robbed Hazlitt of the monetary reward which, even in literature, sweetens labour. He was to have received £500 for the four volumes, which took him four

A

years, and all he got was a bill for £140, which came back dishonoured. Both books are to-day considered failures, yet in compiling them Scott and Hazlitt shattered their health and shortened their lives. To-day their histories figure in nobody's Best Books, and would most certainly be ignored by the University coterie which Dr. Reich wished to be employed to guide Mr. Carnegie in his library lists.

Yet, in the opinion of Goethe, himself the most versatile genius since Bacon, Scott's "Life of Napoleon" was a great work, and the criticism that "such books show you more of the writer than of the subject" is of special interest in considering the value of Napoleon's commonplace books. What such a contemporary as Scott thought of Napoleon and of the French Revolution must always have a value. For Scott, although a romancer by profession, had monumental common-sense and was, as far as a poet can be, the soul of historic truth.

It is not surprising to find that an omnivorous reader like Napoleon should have spent youthful leisure in reading the translation of a history of England, but for us to know what portions of that history he considered noteworthy to copy out is a valuable indication of a great life in the making. Hitherto the life had been strenuous but hardly eventful. He found himself in France "a stranger by birth, and a scholar by charity," and when a man has to build the foundations of his own fortunes there is a lot of unseen work necessary before the more showy architecture rises into view. "The truest wisdom is a resolute determination," was his favourite motto, and in all Smiles's list of heroes there is no example of self-help comparable to Napoleon. It has been well pointed out by a valuable but almost forgotten biographerMr. Henry Lee—that from his first hour Napoleon had to fend for himself, and that when his mother, returning from church, found no one at home and fell down in a swoon she was awakened by the screams of a new arrival on the carpet, who had 1 Phillips.

This

certainly not been in the house ten minutes earlier. Napoleon naturally looks upon as the first epoch of his life. The second was his departure for France in his tenth year in 1778, followed by his arrival at Autun the month following, and at Brienne five months later. Here he remained till October, 1784, when he entered the Military School at Paris. A year later he becomes Second-Lieutenant in the Regiment of La Fère, visits Corsica in 1786, and again in 1788, by special leave of absence, and rejoins his regiment at Auxonne on June 1st of that year. The pretty little walled town of Auxonne, near Dijon, is so called because situated on the Saone-Ad Sonam being its old Roman name. It has still the school of artillery, and holds the almost unique honour of being besieged in vain by the Prussians in 1871. Chuquet has given interesting details of Napoleon's poverty at this time. He lodged close to the barracks. One small chamber with but one window was his bedroom, study, and living room, with a bed, a table, a sofa, a wooden chair, and six rush-bottomed chairs for his furniture. His father had died three years before, his mother and brothers were without friends, while he was literally starving himself not to add to the family troubles, and if possible to mitigate them. All his life he was susceptible to damp, and the marshy, humid climate of Auxonne gave him a malarial fever, which, with the need of saving money to buy books, caused him to eat but one meal daily, and even that milk diet. To economise candles he went to bed at ten and rose at four, when he would often walk to Dôle to read over proofs with his publisher, M. Joly, returning to garrison before noon after his twenty mile walk. Arthur Young describes his walk from Dôle to Auxonne at this very time (July 30, 1789). He says: "The country to Auxonne is cheerful. Cross the Saone at Auxonne; it is a fine river, through a region of flat

1 Hazlitt says the bed was without curtains, that there were only two chairs, the table littered with books and papers, and that his brother Louis slept on a coarse mattress in the next room. ("Life of Napoleon,” vol. i. xx.)