CHAPTER I PARENTAGE AND EARLY YEARS "I was born when my country was perishing. Thirty thousand French vomited upon our coasts, drowning the throne of Liberty in waves of blood, such was the sight which struck my eyes." This passionate utterance, penned by Napoleon Buonaparte at the beginning of the French Revolution, describes the state of Corsica in his natal year. The words are instinct with... more...

CHAPTER IPARENTAGE AND EARLY YEARS "I was born when my country was perishing. Thirty thousand French vomited upon our coasts, drowning the throne of Liberty in waves of blood, such was the sight which struck my eyes." This passionate utterance, penned by Napoleon Buonaparte at the beginning of the French Revolution, describes the state of Corsica in his natal year. The words are instinct with... more...

CHAPTER I. War With Russia: Pultusk. Poland and the Poles — The Seat of War — Change in the Character of Napoleon's Army — The Battle of Pultusk — Discontent in the Grand Army — Homesickness of the French — Napoleon's Generals — His Measures of Reorganization — Weakness of the Russians — The Ability of Bennigsen — Failure of the Russian Manœuvers — Napoleon in Warsaw.... more...

The fine charter with which France had presumably closed the revolutionary epoch, in order to live for the first time under a constitutional government, was about to display its fatal weakness in the production of a deadlock. This possibility had been clearly foreseen by acute observers, since there was no provision for the control of one arm of the government by the other, and in any working system... more...

This life of Napoleon was first published in 1896 as a book: for the years 1895-96 it ran as a serial in the pages of the Century Magazine. Judging from the sales, it has been read by many tens if not hundreds of thousands of readers; and it has been extensively noticed in the critical journals of both worlds. Throughout these fourteen years the demand has been very large and steady, considering the... more...

The wooded hills and pastures of eastern Massachusetts are so close to Boston that from upper windows of the city, looking westward, you can see the tops of pine-trees and orchard-boughs on the high horizon. There is a rustic environment on the landward side; there are old farmhouses at the back of Milton Hill and beyond Belmont which look as unchanged by the besieging suburbs of a great city as if... more...

ANCESTORS To arrive at a full understanding of the complex and unusual character of Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson, which perhaps played as large a part as her beauty and intellectual charm in drawing to her the affections of one of the greatest romance writers of our day, one must go back and seek out all the uncommon influences that combined to produce it—a long line of sturdy ancestors, running back... more...

CHAPTER I I The Buonarroti Simoni, to whom Michelangelo belonged, were a Florentine family of ancient burgher nobility. Their arms appear to have been originally "azure two bends or." To this coat was added "a label of four points gules inclosing three fleur-de-lys or." That augmentation, adopted from the shield of Charles of Anjou, occurs upon the scutcheons of many Guelf houses and... more...

CHAPTER V 1625-28 Death of James I.--The Princesse Henriette is married by proxy to Charles I. --The Duke of Buckingham arrives in France to conduct his young sovereign to her new country--An arrogant suitor--Departure of the English Queen--Indisposition of Marie de Medicis--Arrival of Henriette in London--Growing power of Richelieu--Suspicions of the Queen-mother --Influence of the Jesuit Bérulle... more...

CHAPTER III 1611 A cold correspondence—Increasing influence of the Marquis d'Ancre— Animosity between the Duc d'Epernon and Concini—Disunion of the Princes de Guise and de Lorraine—Renewed dissensions between M. de Bellegarde and the Marquis d'Ancre—They are reconciled by the Comte de Soissons—Marriage of the Duc de Guise—Jealousy of M. de Soissons —Quarrel between the... more...