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I have just finished _Napoléon et les femmes_, by FREDÉRIC MASSON. On
the cover is "_dix-huitième édition_," which shows what a success
the book has obtained. The author is an apologist for NAPOLEON.
The Emperor can do no wrong. What in the private individual is rank
blasphemy, is, to this author, in the Emperor only a pardonable
weakness. Whatever NAPOLEON may have been as the "Man of Destiny" and
as the greatest military genius of his time, he was, if most of these
stories be true, as a man, a satyr, a cad (there is no other English
word for it), and a snob. Satyr he was apparently always; satyr and
cad in certain instances, especially as regards the "WALEWSKA affair,"
in which so many personages took part; everyone of them outraging
morality, and all disregarding the sacredness of marriage; though to
Madame WALEWSKA herself must be apportioned the least share of the
guilt in which all were steeped up to the hilt. Madame WALEWSKA
yielded herself as a victim to a most cruel combination of
circumstances; and of this NAPOLEON availed himself to the utmost.
It was in his power to have behaved as a gentleman for once, but he
allowed the opportunity to slip. That he appears, on one occasion,
to have permitted a poor terrified, artless victim to escape is put
forward triumphantly by his apologist as a proof of his magnanimity;
but even a satiated animal will refuse food, though if the food be in
his possession he will play the dog in the manger. He had a tigerish
admiration for the deepest tragedy, and abhorred farce and comedy.
He could play like a child with the one child of whom he hoped great
things. Cad he was always, in his dealings with men and women. As
an imperial cad he was toadied by his grovelling courtiers; but when
there is much to be gained by toadying a cad, and everything to lose
by not toadying him, all will be toadies from the highest to the
lowest. The exceptions are rare. A thorough snob did "the Corsican
upstart" show himself in his eager anxiety for recognition by the
royal and aristocratic families of Europe, and by his servility to
the Austrian EMPEROR, in order to obtain the hand of the high-born
MARIE-LOUISE. If ever tyrant deserved defeat and disgrace NAPOLEON did
so. Like Cardinal WOLSEY, what "best became him in his life was the
leaving of it." Those interested, and who is not, in "the NAPOLEON
Legend," should not fail to read this book, says