Napoleon the First; An Intimate Biography
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OF books and memoirs about Napoleon there is no end, but there are comparatively few which give an unprejudiced picture of the man. For the most part, no judgment has been passed upon him but either of profound antipathy or of blind admiration.
The books published about him during his life, and for many years after his death, have but little value. The idolatry and hatred which he inspired survived him too long to allow for an unbiased view. It has been his fate, in death, as in life, to stir the hearts of men to their depths.
Now that one hundred years have elapsed since the " long-drawn agony " of Saint Helena we think that the time has come for a more impartial estimate. Facts are clearer, motives are better known, and much new evidence is available. Let us then endeavour to depict Napoleon as he was, and " nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice."
The life of Napoleon will always be associated with the names of three small islands: Corsica, where he was born; Elba, where he was first sent into exile; and Saint Helena, where he ended his days. Lying in a magnificent site, at the extremity of its azure gulf, with an amphitheatre of mountains in the background, is situated the little city of Ajaccio, the capital of Corsica. As the place first appears to the eye of the traveller on the small steamer from Marseille, he is enchanted by a scene of beauty only surpassed by that of the larger and grander bay of Naples.
The town glistens like a white city against the green slopes of snow-capped Monte d'Oro which come down from the blue sky to meet the blue sea. At the end of the stone dock, the Quai Napoleon, at which the steamer ties up, is a wide, shady square, surrounded by tall palms.
A street, the Rue Napoleon, leads to the older part of the town back of the citadel. Almost in the centre of the little city, and not more than five minutes walk from the cathedral in one direction and from the citadel in another stands a four-story, square stone house at the corner of a narrow street.
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