Our last extract relates some traits of the great Napoleon which seem more than ordinarily worth his nephew's attention just now. They are taken from a somewhat elaborate character of the Emperor which occupies nearly a third of the volume.
"Nothing could exceed the order and regularity with which his household both as Consul and Emperor was conducted. The great things he accomplished, and the savings he made, without even the imputation of avarice or meanness, with the sum comparatively inconsiderable of fifteen millions of francs a year, are marvellous, and expose his successors, and indeed all European Princes, to the reproach of negligence or incapacity. In this branch of his government he owed much to Duroc. It is said that they often visited the markets of Paris (les halles) dressed in plain clothes and early in the morning. When any great accounts were to be submitted to the Emperor, Duroc would apprize him in secret of some of the minutest details. By an adroit allusion to them or a careless remark on the points upon which he had received such recent and accurate information, Napoleon contrived to impress his audience with a notion that the master's eye was every where. For instance, when the Tuileries were furnished, the upholsterer's charges though not very exorbitant, were suspected by the Emperor to be higher than the usual profit of that trade would have warranted. He suddenly asked some minister who was with him how much the egg at the end of the bell-rope should cost? 'J'ignore,' was the answer.'Eh bien! nous verrons,' said he, and then cut off the ivory handle, called for a valet, and bidding him dress himself in plain and ordinary clothes, and neither divulge his immediate commission or general employment to any living soul, directed him to inquire the price of such articles at several shops in Paris, and to order a dozen as for himself. They were one-third less dear than those furnished to the palace. The Emperor, inferring that the same advantage had been taken in the other articles, struck a third off the whole charge, and directed the tradesman to be informed that it was done at his express command, because on inspection he had himself discovered the charges to be by one-third too exorbitant. When afterwards in the height of his glory he visited Caen with the Empress Maria Louisa, and a train of crowned heads and princes, his old friend, M. Mechin, the Prefect, aware of his taste for detail, waited upon him with five statistical tables of the expenditure, revenue, prices, produce, and commerce of the departments. 'C'est bon,' said he, when he received them the evening of his arrival, 'vous et moi nous ferous bien de l'esprit sur tout cela demain au Conseil.' Accordingly, he astonished all the leading proprietors of the department at the meeting next day, by his minute knowledge of the prices of good and bad cyder, and of the produce and other circumstances of the various districts of the department. Even the Royalist gentry were impressed with a respect for his person, which gratitude for the restitution of their lands had failed to inspire, and which, it must be acknowledged, the first faint hope of vengeance against their enemies entirely obliterated in almost every member of that intolerant faction. Other princes have shown an equal fondness for minute details with Napoleon, but here is the difference. The use they made of their knowledge was to torment their inferiors and weary their company: the purpose to which Napoleon applied it was to confine the expanses of the State to the objects and interests of the community."
Lord Holland dwells at some length on the treatment to which Napoleon was subjected by the English Government, and on the generous attempts of Lady Holland to alleviate his captivity. This part of the volume has much present interest, and will be read with great eagerness by all. Of the Emperor's temper, he says:
"Napoleon, even in the plenitude of his power, seldom gratified his revenge by resorting to any act either illegal or unjust, though he frequently indulged his ill-humor by speaking both of and to those who had displeased him in a manner mortifying to their feelings and their pride. The instances of his love of vengeance are very few: they are generally of an insolent rather than a sanguinary character, more discreditable to his head than his heart, and a proof of his want of manners, taste, and possibly feeling, but not of a dye to affect his humanity. Of what man, possessed of such extended yet such disputed authority, can so much be said? Of Washington? Of Cromwell? But Washington, if he had ever equal provocation and motives for revenge, certainly never possessed such power to gratify it. His glory, greater in truth than that of Cæsar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte, was that he never aspired: but he disdained such power; he never had it, and cannot therefore deserve immoderate praise for not exerting what he did not possess. In the affair of General Lee, he did not, if I recollect, show much inclination to forgive. Even Cromwell did not possess the power of revenge to the same extent as Napoleon. There is reason, however, to infer from his moderation and forbearance that he would have used it as sparingly. But Cromwell is less irreproachable, on the score of another vice, viz., ingratitude. Napoleon not only never forgot a favor, but, unlike most ambitious characters, never allowed subsequent injuries to cancel his recollection of services. He was uniformly indulgent to the faults of those whom he had once distinguished. He saw them, he sometimes exposed and rectified, but he never punished or revenged them. Many have blamed him for this on the score of policy; but if it was not sense and calculation, it should be ascribed to good-nature. None, I presume, will impute it to weakness or want of discernment."
This account of Napoleon's ideas on religion is curious, and we think new.
"Whatever were the religious sentiments of this extraordinary man, such companions were likely neither to fix nor to shake, to sway nor to alter them. I have been at some pains to ascertain the little that can be known of his thoughts on such subjects, and, though it is not very satisfactory, it appears to me worth recording.
"In the early periods of the Revolution, he, in common with many of his countrymen, conformed to the fashion of treating all such matters, both in conversation and action, with levity and even derision. In his subsequent career, like most men exposed to wonderful vicissitudes, he professed, half in jest and half in earnest, a sort of confidence in fatalism and predestination. But on some solemn public occasions, and yet more in private and sober discussion, he not only gravely disclaimed and reproved infidelity, but both by actions and words implied his conviction that a conversion to religious enthusiasm might befal himself, or any other man. He had more than tolerancehe had indulgence and respect for extravagant and ascetic notions of religious duty. He grounded that feeling not on their soundness or their truth, but on the uncertainty of what our minds may be reserved for, on the possibility of our being prevailed upon to admit and even to devote ourselves to tenets which at first excite our derision. It has been observed that there was a tincture of Italian superstition in his character; a sort of conviction from reason that the doctrines of revelation were not true, and yet a persuasion, or at least an apprehension, that he might live to think them so. He was satisfied that the seeds of belief were deeply sown in the human heart. It was on that principle that he permitted and justified, though he did not dare to authorize, the revival of La Trappe and other austere orders. He contended that they might operate as a safety-valve for the fanatical and visionary ferment which would otherwise burst forth and disturb society. In his remarks on the death of Duroc, and in the reasons he alleged against suicide, both in calm and speculative discussion and in moments of strong emotion, (such as occurred at Fontainbleau in 1814,) he implied a belief both in fatality and Providence.
"In the programme of his coronation, a part of the ceremony was to consist in his taking the communion. But when the plan was submitted to him, he, to the surprise of those who had drawn it, was absolutely indignant at the suggestion. 'No man,' he said, 'had the means of knowing, or had the right to say, when or where he would take the sacrament, or whether he would or not.' On this occasion, he added, that he would not; nor did he.
"There is some mystery about his conduct in similar respects at St. Helena, and during the last days of his life. He certainly had mass celebrated in his chapel while he was well, and in his bedroom when ill. But though I have reason to believe that the last sacraments were actually administered to him privately a few days before his death, and probably after confession, yet Count Montholon, from whom I derive indirectly my information, also stated that he received Napoleon's earnest and distinct directions to conceal all the preliminary preparations for that melancholy ceremony from all his other companions, and even to enjoin the priest, if questioned, to say he acted by Count Montholon's orders, but had no knowledge of the Emperor's wishes.
"It seems as if he had some desire for such assurance as the Church could give, but yet was ashamed to own it. He knew that some at St. Helena, and more in France, would deem his recourse to such consolation infirmity; perhaps he deemed it so himself. Religion may sing her triumph, philosophy exclaim 'pauvre humanite,' more impartial scepticism despair of discovering the motive, but truth and history must, I believe, acknowledge the fact."
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON
By Rufus W. Griswold"Formerly," said Baron Cuvier, in a report to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, "European naturalists had to make known her own treasures to America; but now her Mitchells, Harlans, and Charles Bonapartes, have repaid with interest the debt which she owed to Europe. The history of the American birds by Wilson, already equals in elegance our most beautiful works in ornithology, and if ever that of Audubon be completed, it will have to be confessed that in magnificence of execution the Old World is surpassed by the New." The work of the "American backwoodsman" thus alluded to, has long been completed; the great Cuvier subsequently acknowledged it to be "the most splendid monument which art has erected in honor of ornithology;" and the judgment of mankind has placed the name of our countryman first in the list of authors and artists who have illustrated the beautiful branch of natural history to which he has devoted so large a portion of his long and heroic life.
John James Audubon was born in Louisiana about the year 1782. He was of French descent, and his parents perceiving early the bent of his genius sent him to Paris to pursue his education. While there he attended schools of natural history and the arts, and in drawing took lessons from the celebrated David. He returned in his eighteenth year, and his father soon after gave him a farm near Philadelphia, where the Perkioming creek falls into the Schuylkill. Its fine woods offered him numerous subjects for his pencil, and he here commenced that series of drawings which ultimately swelled into the magnificent collection of The Birds of America. Here too he was married, and here was born his eldest son. He engaged in commercial speculations, but was not successful. His love for the fields and flowers, the forests and their winged inhabitants, we readily suppose unfitted him for trade. At the end of ten years he removed to the west. There were then no steamboats on the Ohio, and few villages and no cities on its shores. Reaching that noble river in the warm days of autumn, he purchased a small boat in which, with his wife and child and two rowers, he leisurely pursued his way down to Henderson, in Kentucky, where his family resided several years. He appears at first to have engaged in commerce, for he mentions his meeting with Wilson, of whom till then he had never heard, as having occurred in his counting-room in Louisville in the spring of 1810. His great predecessor was procuring subscriptions for his work. He called on Audubon, explained the nature of his occupations, and requested his patronage. The merchant was surprised and gratified at the sight of his volumes, and had taken a pen to add his name to the list of subscribers, when his partner abruptly said to him in French, "My dear Audubon, what induces you to do so? your own drawings are certainly far better, and you must know as much of the habits of American birds as this gentleman. "Wilson probably understood the remark, for he appeared not to be pleased, and inquired whether Audubon had any drawings of birds. A large portfolio was placed upon the table, and all its contents exhibited by the amateur ornithologist. Wilson was surprised; he had supposed he was himself the only person engaged in forming such a collection; and asked if it was intended to publish them. Audubon replied in the negative: he had never thought of presenting the fruits of his labors to the world. Wilson was still more surprised; he lost his cheerfulness; and though before he left Louisville Audubon explored with him the neighboring woods, loaned him his drawings, and in other ways essayed to promote his interests and happiness, he shook the dust from his feet when he departed, and wrote in his diary that "literature or art had not a friend in the place." Far be it from me to write a word in dispraise of Alexander Wilson. He was a man of genius, enthusiasm, and patient endurance; an honor to the country of his birth, and a glory to that of his adoption; but he evidently could not bear the thought of being excelled. With all his merits he was even then greatly inferior to Audubon, and his heart failed him when he contrasted the performances which had won fame for him with those of the unknown lover of the same mistress, Nature, whom he thus encountered.