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Page 47
I think I am more regretful of having neglected the Napoleonana
than of having missed the real-estate chances, for since my
library contains fewer than two hundred volumes relating to
Bonaparte and his times I feel that I have been strangely remiss
in the pursuit of one of the most interesting and most
instructive of bibliomaniac fads. When I behold the remarkable
collections of Napoleonana made by certain friends of mine I am
filled with conflicting emotions of delight and envy, and Judge
Methuen and I are wont to contemplate with regret the
opportunities we once had of throwing all these modern
collections in the shade.
When I speak of Napoleonana I refer exclusively to literature
relating to Napoleon; the term, however, is generally used in a
broader sense, and includes every variety of object, from the
snuff-boxes used by the emperor at Malmaison to the slippers he
wore at St. Helena. My friend, Mr. Redding, of California, has a
silver knife and fork that once belonged to Bonaparte, and Mr.
Mills, another friend of mine, has the neckerchief which Napoleon
wore on the field of Waterloo. In Le Blanc's little treatise
upon the art of tying the cravat it is recorded that Napoleon
generally wore a black silk cravat, as was remarked at Wagram,
Lodi, Marengo and Austerlitz. ``But at Waterloo,'' says Le
Blanc, ``it was observed that, contrary to his usual custom, he
wore a white handkerchief with a flowing bow, although the day
previous he appeared in his black cravat.''
I remember to have seen in the collection of Mr. Melville E.
Stone a finger-ring, which, having been brought by an old French
soldier to New Orleans, ultimately found its way to a pawn-shop.
This bauble was of gold, and at two opposite points upon its
outer surface appeared a Napoleonic ``N,'' done in black enamel:
by pressing upon one of these Ns a secret spring was operated,
the top of the ring flew back, and a tiny gold figure of the
Little Corporal stood up, to the astonishment and admiration of
the beholder.
Another curious Napoleonic souvenir in Mr. Stone's motley
collection is a cotton print handkerchief, upon which are
recorded scenes from the career of the emperor; the thing must
have been of English manufacture, for only an Englishman
(inspired by that fear and that hatred of Bonaparte which only
Englishmen had) could have devised this atrocious libel. One has
to read the literature current in the earlier part of this
century in order to get a correct idea of the terror with which
Bonaparte filled his enemies, and this literature is so extensive
that it seems an impossibility that anything like a complete
collection should be got together; to say nothing of the
histories, the biographies, the volumes of reminiscence and the
books of criticism which the career of the Corsican inspired,
there are Napoleon dream-books, Napoleon song-books, Napoleon
chap-books, etc., etc., beyond the capability of enumeration.
The English were particularly active in disseminating libels upon
Napoleon; they charged him in their books and pamphlets with
murder, arson, incest, treason, treachery, cowardice, seduction,
hypocrisy, avarice, robbery, ingratitude, and jealousy; they said
that he poisoned his sick soldiers, that he was the father of
Hortense's child, that he committed the most atrocious cruelties
in Egypt and Italy, that he married Barras' discarded mistress,
that he was afflicted with a loathsome disease, that he murdered
the Duc d'Enghien and officers in his own army of whom he was
jealous, that he was criminally intimate with his own sisters--in
short, there was no crime, however revolting, with which these
calumniators were not hasty to charge the emperor.
This same vindictive hatred was visited also upon all associated
with Bonaparte in the conduct of affairs at that time. Murat was
``a brute and a thief''; Josephine, Hortense, Pauline, and Mme.
Letitia were courtesans; Berthier was a shuffling, time-serving
lackey and tool; Augereau was a bastard, a spy, a robber, and a
murderer; Fouche was the incarnation of every vice; Lucien
Bonaparte was a roue and a marplot; Cambaceres was a debauchee;
Lannes was a thief, brigand, and a poisoner; Talleyrand and
Barras were--well, what evil was told of them has yet to be
disproved. But you would gather from contemporaneous English
publications that Bonaparte and his associates were veritable
fiends from hell sent to scourge civilization. These books are
so strangely curious that we find it hard to classify them: we
cannot call them history, and they are too truculent to pass for
humor; yet they occupy a distinct and important place among
Napoleonana.
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