174 Constant's Memoirs of Buonaparte. AuG. 



contemplate a self-raised sovereign in the retirement of private life ; to 

 view the points of resemblance which a hero bears to his fellow-men ; 

 whether the performance has realized the promise., remains to be seen. 

 The author must undoubtedly be ranked amongst those who, by a rare 

 and fortuitous concurrence of circumstances, enjoyed the advantage of 

 observing the man amidst the gaudy splendours which surrounded the 

 monarch : consequently, his pages, if purified from the taint of fulsome 

 panegyric, and the enthusiasm of blind admiration, might aid in dis- 

 pelling the illusions of the present, and in rectifying the judgments of 

 the future. In the cabinet, we behold the statesman decked in his robe 

 of office, in the field of battle, the warrior in plume and casque; 

 but in the privacy of the bed-chamber, the man, how exalted soever by 

 place or chivalrous deeds of glory, appears to his valet in complete 

 deshabille. The Memoirs of Constant are professedly a sketch of Napo- 

 leon's domestic habits ; of Napoleon laying aside the warrior's sword, 

 the consular purple, the diadem of empire ; of Napoleon unambitious of 

 power, and forgetful of a world whose fate seemed to hang upon his 

 dreams of conquest. That Constant was favoured with peculiar faci- 

 lities for the execution of his self-imposed task, we do not deny: we 

 will even give him credit, to a certain extent, for honesty of purpose, 

 and for a strict determination to overstep not the historian's fidelity ; and 

 when we consider the mode in which books are now-a-days manufac- 

 tured, the admission on our part is ample. Notwithstanding this con- 

 cession, a feeling of gratitude, commendable in itself, but fatal to the 

 confidence which he seeks to inspire, renders the author, in our judg- 

 ment, incapable of writing an accurate and impartial memoir of Napo- 

 leon, to whose bounty he was indebted for the comforts of his existence, 

 and for whose memory he professes a respect little short of adoration. 

 In proof of our assertion, we need only remark, that we cannot recollect 

 a single passage in censure of Napoleon, though many of his actions are 

 cited, which, if attributed to a mere ordinary potentate, would no doubt 

 have excited the honest valet-de-chambre's unsparing indignation. All 

 is panegyric. Constant admits that Napoleon shared the physical wants 

 and infirmities of his species, but he seems to deny him the slightest 

 participation in their moral defects ; or, at the worst, 



" E'en his failings leaned to virtue's side." 



The author should recollect that, in modelling a hero, the skilful statuary 

 rejects the unwieldy dimensions of a colossus, as well as the diminutive 

 proportions of a dwarf, and fashions his work after the just and harmo- 

 nious symmetry of natural life. 



The publisher of Constant's Memoirs insists strongly upon their 

 authenticity. On this point we ourselves entertain not the slightest 

 doubt : the work is evidently written by a valet- de-chambre ; its slip- 

 slop style, and, in many instances, its triviality of detail, are precisely 

 such as might be expected from an aspiring knight of the shoulder-knot, 

 ambitious of literary fame. In addition to the style, which, as Buffon 

 says, is the man, these memoirs are marked by other distinguishing 

 characteristics, that sufficiently prove their origin. M. Constant pro- 

 fesses unbounded veneration for the infallibility of the great : he views 

 their actions through a most convenient prism, transforming their vices 

 into virtues, and magnifying their virtues into the perfection of super- 

 human excellence. Albeit that his modesty would fain eclipse the 



