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Joseph was an attractive type. Few families so numerous, even in 

 private life, none so prodigiously elevated and then terribly reversed, 

 can be mentioned truer to patriotism, to probity and humanity, 

 throughout trying vicissitudes, much fonder of each other in adver- 

 sity than prosperity, always free from shocking offences or paltry 

 vices. Judging by the unerring developments of posthumous truth, 

 none are more certain of the applause of impartial history and the 

 approval of posterity. 



That their mighty earthly creator was worse for prosperity, and 

 impatient of adversity, may be part of his history. But that, take 

 him for all in all, his memory is dear to the unsophisticated peasant- 

 ry, the simple hearted millions of France, has been lately attested by 

 the votes of eight millions of those made democratic landlords by the 

 revolution of which Napoleon was truly the child and the champion. 

 Poor and uneducated owners of small estates, of which they are as 

 tenacious as opulent nobles of their great domains, like our Ameri- 

 can farmers and planters, conservative upholders of law, and order, 

 and property, controlling suburban mobs, metropolitan clubs, and a 

 centralized executive, they saved not only France but nearly all Eu- 

 rope from the anarchy with which it was threatened by those mis- 

 called republicans, who, mocking but perverting liberty, revived and 

 aggravated despotism. The wisest statesmen now acknowledge that 

 the god of these peasants' idolatry was a man of superhuman wis- 

 dom, whose politics are become proverbial, like those of Aristotle and 

 Cicero. The tremendous struggle he anticipated is raging between 

 Western and Eastern Europe, proving his vast providence by his 

 own weather-beaten overthrow in a Titan effort, which Great Britain 

 is now straining every nerve to atone for by renewing it, for the sub- 

 jugation of the same overreaching Asiatic empire. 



Napoleon, though not our topic, was so constantly and closely 

 united with Joseph, throughout their combined career, from school- 

 boys till they parted dethroned Emperor and King, one for England, 

 the other for America, that their rise, culmination, decline, and fall 

 were always together. To appreciate Joseph justly, we must, there- 

 fore, understand his intimate connection with a younger brother, 

 whose prodigious conquests gilded the iron ascendency, of which, 

 while always submissive, the elder constantly strove to check its ex- 

 cesses and temper its violence. The eldest was the mildest of the 

 Bonapartes; just and tenacious, but considerate and forbearing; liv- 

 ing ever affectionately with a large, multiplied, and mixed family of 

 Bonapartes and Beauharnais, Corsicans, French, Americans, and 



