had an hour for diversion, he not unfrequently employed it in
looking over a book of logarithms, which he acknowledged, with some
surprise, was at all seasons of his life a recreation to him. So
retentive was his memory of numbers, that sums over which he had once
glanced his eye were in his mind ever after. He recollected the
respective produce of all taxes through every year of his
administration, and could, at any time, repeat any one of them, even to
the centimes. Thus his detection of errors in accounts appeared
marvelous, and he often indulged in the pardonable artifice of
displaying these faculties in a way to create a persuasion that his
vigilance was almost supernatural. In running over an account of
expenditure, he perceived the rations of a battalion charged on a
certain day at Besancon. "Mais le bataillon n'etait pas la," said he,
"il y a erreur." The minister, recollecting that the emperor had been at
the time out of France, and confiding in the regularity of his
subordinate agents, persisted that the battalion must have been at
Besancon. Napoleon insisted on further inquiry. It turned out to be a
fraud and not a mistake. The peculating accountant was dismissed, and
the scrutinizing spirit of the emperor circulated with the anecdote
through every branch of the public service, in a way to deter every
clerk from committing the slightest error, from fear of immediate
detection. His knowledge, in other matters, was often as accurate and
nearly as surprising. Not only were the Swiss deputies in 1801
astonished at his familiar acquaintance with the history, laws, and
usages of their country, which seemed the result of a life of research,
but even the envoys from the insignificant Republic of San Marino, were
astonished at finding that he knew the families and feuds of that small
community, and discoursed on the respective views, conditions, and
interests of parties and individuals, as if he had been educated in the
petty squabbles and local politics of that diminutive society. I
remember a simple native of that place told me in 1814 that the
phenomenon was accounted for by the Saint of the town appearing to him
over-night, in order to assist his deliberations.

HIS KNOWLEDGE OF NAVAL AFFAIRS.

Some anecdotes related to me by the distinguished officer who conveyed
him in the Undaunted to Elba, in 1814, prove the extent, variety, and
accuracy of knowledge of Napoleon. On his first arrival on the coast, in
compa