APOLEON BONAPARTE was born at Ajaccio, in Corsica, on the 15th of August, 1769; the old orthography of his name was Buonaparte, but he suppressed the u during his first campaign in

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Italy. His motives for so doing were merely to render the spelling conformable with the pronunciation, and to abridge his signature.-Bourrienne's Memoirs of Bonaparte. 2. " Incapable to estimate his uncommon merit, or rather, to penetrate his true motives, his superiors and schoolfellows taxed him with being foolish and ridiculous. Every means was tried, but in vain, to restore him to himself by making him change his conduct. Insensible to affronts which he could not resent, he repelled the railleries of the masters by silence and disdain. Humiliation and even punishment, which were also employed, had no better success."-The Entertaining History of the Early Years of General Bonaparte. By a Royal Emigrant, one of Bonaparte's Schoolfellows. (1810.) 3. Josephine de Beauharnais was a native of St. Domingo, and the daughter of a planter named De la Pagerie. While she was an infant, she herself stated, a negro sorceress prophesied that "she should one day be greater than a queen, and yet outlive her dignity." According to some, the last clause ran, "die in an hospital," which was in the sequel interpreted to mean Malmaison-a palace which (like our own St. James's) had once been an hospital.

4. Before Madame Beauharnais' marriage with Bonaparte she wrote to a friend as follows:-" I admire the General's courage; the extent of his knowledge on every subject (for on every one he speaks equally well); the penetration of his mind which enables him to apprehend another's thought almost before it is expressed; but I own I am not without dread on beholding the empire which he appears to exercise over everything around him. His scrutinizing look has in it something singular-something which I cannot explain, but which is felt even by our directors. Must it not, then, intimidate a woman? Barras tells me, that if I marry the General, he shall have the chief command of the army of Italy. Yesterday, in speaking of this promotion, which though not yet bestowed, causes his brother officers to murmur, Bonaparte said to me, Do they (the Directors) believe that I stand in need of PROTECTION to make my way? Some time all of them will be happy to receive mine! I wear a sword, which will be found my best patron.' What think you of this certainty of success? Is it not a proof of overweening confidence, proceeding from excessive self-love? A general of brigade protect the heads of government! After all, it is likely enough. Sometimes this ridiculous assurance imposes on me to such a degree that I believe possible whatever this extraordinary man may take a fancy to attempt; and with his imagination, who can say what he may not attempt?"-Mémoires de Josephine. Paris, 1829. [Bourrienne pronounces this work genuine, though published anonymously.]

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5. Josephine was remarkable for her extravagance. one occasion she owed no less than 1,200,000 francs, and prevailed upon the secretary to state her debts at half that sum. "The anger of the First Consul," says Bourrienne, "may be conceived. He suspected, however, that his wife concealed something; but he said,-Take the 600,000 francs, but let that sum suffice; let me be pestered with no more of her debts. Threaten the creditors with the loss of their accounts if they do not renounce their enormous profits.' These accounts Madame Bonaparte laid before me. The exorbitant price of every article arising from the fear of the creditors either that they must give very long credit, or in the end be

compelled to make a considerable abatement is incredible. I thought, too, that many articles were charged for which had never been delivered. In one bill, for instance, thirty-eight hats of a very high price were supplied in one month; the feathers alone were 1,800 francs. I asked Josephine if she wore two hats a day, she said, 'It must be an error.' Other overcharges, both as to the price, and the things furnished, evinced the same system of plunder. I followed the Consul's advice, and spared neither reproaches nor threats. I am ashamed to say that the greater number of the tradesmen were satisfied with one-half of their bills; one of them consented to receive 35,000 francs instead of 80,000, and had the impudence to boast before my face that he had a good profit left."

6. "The First Consul, being informed that the carriers of the mails conveyed also a variety of other things, especially delicacies for certain favoured persons, ordered that in future the service of the post should be confined to letters and despatches. That very evening Cambacères entered the room in which I was sitting with the First Consul, who enjoyed beforehand the embarrassment of his colleague. 'Well, Cambacères, what is the matter at this hour?' I come to request an exception to the order you have given to the director of the posts. How do you suppose that friends can either be made or preserved without the best dishes? You know yourself that a good table has a great deal to do with the art of governing.' The First Consul laughed heartily, called him a gourmand, and patting him on the shoulder said,—‘Be comforted, my poor Cambacères, forget your anger; the couriers shall continue to bring your patés de Strasbourg.”—Bourrienne's Memoirs.

7. 66 Bonaparte," says Madame de Staël, "chose with singular sagacity for his assistant consuls, two men who were of no use but to disguise the unity of his despotism. The one was Cambacères, a lawyer of great learning, who had been taught in the Convention to bend methodically before terror; the other Lebrun, a man of highly cultivated mind and highly polished manners, who had been trained under the Chancellor Maupeon -under that minister who, satisfied with the degree of arbi

trary power which he found in the monarchy as it then existed, had substituted for the parliaments of France one named by himself. Cambacères was the interpreter of Bonaparte to the revolutionists; Lebrun to the royalists. Both translated the same text into two different languages. Thus two able ministers were charged with the task of adapting the old system and the new to the mixed mass of the third. The one a great noble, who had been engaged in the revolution, told the royalists that it was their interest to recover monarchical institutions, at the expense of renouncing the ancient dynasty. The other, who, though a creature of the era of disaster, was ready to promote the re-establishment of courts, preached to the republicans the necessity of abandoning their political opinions in order to preserve their places.”

8. The following is a tolerable example of the system of espionage pursued by Savary:

A man who had lost his two sons in the Russian campaign was suspected of not being very heartily attached to the existing government; such, indeed, was the fact, but he was prudent enough to speak his mind only in presence of his most intimate friends; before the rest of the world he was mute, thereby baffling the efforts of the numerous hired spies whom Savary had placed over him. As he was one day seated in the garden of the Luxembourg, accompanied by a tried friend, the conversation began with the battle of Leipsic, which had recently taken place. In the sequel neither spared the despot, whose downfal they hoped was near at hand. In the midst of this confidential intercourse a lovely little boy, apparently in his sixth year, came weeping towards them, crying that he had lost his nurse. They endeavoured to comfort him, telling him not to sob, for his nurse would not fail to seek him. During the quarter of an hour which he remained with them they continued to converse on the same subject. Then a woman was seen to approach with a child in her arms; no sooner did the boy perceive her than he cried, "There is my nurse," and hastened to rejoin her. The very next morning both were arrested and conducted to the Conciergerie. The childless parent was the first interrogated, and his surprise was not little to hear repeated, word for word, a portion of his conver

sation with his friend. His natural impression was that that friend had betrayed him, but he soon found his mistake. Both were immediately imprisoned, nor were they enlarged before the fall of Napoleon. Children of both sexes were employed in this execrable system of espionage.-Court and Camp of Bonaparte.

9. Not even Napoleon's example could persuade the Parisians to wear ill-shaped hats and clumsy boots; but he in his own person adhered to the last to his original connection with these poor artisans.

10. The following list of books for a Camp Library Napoleon made out with his own hand, before the expedition to the East:

I. Science and the Arts.-Plurality of Worlds, Fontenelle, 1 vol. Letters to a German Princess, 2 vols. Course of the Normal School, 6 vols. Treatise on Artillery, 1 vol. Fortifications, 3 vols. On Fireworks, 1 vol.

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II. Geography and Travels.-Barclay's Geography, 12 vols. Cook's Voyages, 3 vols. La Harpe's Collection of French Voyages and Travels, 24 vols.

III. History.-Plutarch, 12 vols. Turenne, 2 vols. Condé, 4 vols. Villars, 4 vols. Luxembourg, 2 vols. Duguesclin, 2 vols. Saxe, 3 vols. Memoirs of the French Marshals, 20 vols. President Hainault, 4 vols. Chronology, 2 vols. Marlborough, 4 vols. Prince Eugène, 6 vols. Philosophical History of India, 12 vols. Germany, 2 vols. Charles XII., 1 vol. Essay on the Manners of Nations, 6 vols. Peter the Great, 1 vol. Polybius, 6 vols. Justin, 2 vols. Arrian, 3 vols. Tacitus, 2 vols. Livy, - vols. Thucydides, 2 vols. Vertot, 4 vols. Deuina, 8 vols. Frederic II., 8 vols.

IV. Poetry.-Ossian, 1 vol. Tasso, 6 vols. Ariosto, 6 vols. Homer, 6 vols. Virgil, 4 vols. Henriade, 1 vol. Télémaque, 2 vols. The Gardens (Delille) 1 vol. Masterpieces of the French Drama, 20 vols. Select Fugitive Poetry, 10 vols. La Fontaine, vols.

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V. Fiction.-Voltaire, 4 vols. Heloise, 4 vols. Werther, 1 vol. Marmontel, 4 vols. English Novels, 40 vols. Sage, 10 vols. Prevost, 10 vols.

VI. Political (?)-Old Testament and New. The Koran.